


The Whicker Man

by on_the_wing



Category: Starfighter (Comic), Starfighter Eclipse, どうぶつの森 | Animal Crossing Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Crack Treated Seriously, Creative Makeout Techniques, Crossover, Gothic Lurking, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Masks, Mystery, glamping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_wing/pseuds/on_the_wing
Summary: People are disappearing on the tiny, mysterious island nation of Ninten, and neither the locals nor the curious “animal” visitors seem to know what’s happening.
Relationships: Abel/Phobos (Starfighter), Deimos/Praxis (Starfighter), Helios/Selene (Starfighter), one-sided Phobos/Selene (Starfighter)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 13
Collections: Starfighter Secret Santa





	1. Jules & Port’s Bogus Journey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Royal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royal/gifts).



> Happy holidays to Royal Phantom! I hope this makes any sense at all, or at least makes nonsense in a way you like. :)

_Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth._

—Oscar Wilde

Jules ripped off the mask. They hadn’t even reached Ninten yet and he was already stifled by the bloody thing. He let the bracing sea wind slap his face, probably crusting his hair with salt but who cared, it wasn’t as if he were allowed to let it loose from its tight queue.

At least he wasn’t required to wear the full horse suit the way they did fifty years ago, complete with stifling head, hoof-shaped mittens, and a tail that you had to sweep aside every time you sat down. In these modern times he could get away with only ( _only!_ ) the face mask with pinned-on cerulean mane and the black gloves that symbolized hooves. He was allowed to wear his own clothes, as long as they were blue with white accents. Luckily he was moderately fond of blue, and had only needed to have a few pieces made before they rushed him out to the ship.

He studied the mask. The expression was insipid and the colors lurid; a unicorn should be a tasteful cream color, not this violent cyan. A white blaze ran down the middle like a trail of bird shit, ending in a muzzle that was white instead of the tender peach or velvety dark grey of a real horse. The “eyelids” were painted a lurid, tarty purple. The horn was white and plain with no spiral, and although he wouldn’t have wanted anything long and heavy bobbing off his forehead and knocking into door frames, he was secretly a little insulted at how small it was. Shouldn’t a _horse_ have a bigger horn?

The pictures he’d seen had been much more graceful and becoming than this awkward, ludicrous thing. And yet, it was still better than aping a dog or a pig or a cow. Or an ape. Besides, the color matched his eyes.

The persona of Julian the unicorn had seemed perfect when he was flipping through the handbook. The name, so close to his own. The thematic alignment: elegant. The gifting alignment: metal, much smaller and easier to transport than lumber or textiles, and not prone to spoilage as were foodstuffs, paper, or books. The historical associations with Faranése culture and heritage. The personal characteristics: free-spirited and eccentric, which would be useful to excuse any fits of temper or lapses in decorum. 

The legend stated that Julian was a unicorn born inexplicably to a pair of ordinary horses. It was an obvious metaphor for royal or even divine lineage, but Jules could appreciate the secondary meaning: an intelligent, sensitive boy born into a crude, harsh, mercenary family with no more imagination or appreciation of finer things than the occupants of a stable.

Jules harbored no illusions about his own flaws. He was vain, stubborn, selfish, effeminate, touchy, and scheming, with a cowardly streak and an intemperate love of luxury. He knew he would be at a grave disadvantage compared to the other “visiting animals;” most of them had studied their roles—and Nintean culture—for years, and his degree was due more to his father’s money and influence than his own halfhearted efforts. 

But he’d be damned if he let some scruffy botanists or dusty old professors show him up. He’d find out something useful about this godforsaken backwater enigma if it killed him. Everyone had been trying in vain to ferret out Ninten’s secrets for over a hundred years, ever since the Kleismo, the time when the tiny and previously impoverished chain of islands suddenly closed its borders and ceased all official trade with the outside world. The only intrusion they eventually allowed was this bizarre folkloric ritual of a few dozen “animal spirit guests," foreign scientists who were allowed to stay in supervised campsites and conduct a limited amount of research (and semi-covert trade) for six-month periods, provided they took on the costumes and personas of specific animal spirits from Nintean folklore.

“Sir, I beg your pardon, but you must wear the mask at all times when in the company of others.” Captain Gulliver clung to his side like an obsequious tick, sucking the fun out of everything. There were other first-time visitors on the ship, and the trip from Calosson only took about a day and a half, but the captain had immediately sniffed out Jules as a likely troublemaker.

Jules flipped his mane in what was already becoming an unconscious gesture. “Ugh! We can’t even see Ninten yet. Give me a _break_.”

“If you require rest, sir, you may return to your cabin. But as you know, it takes practice to become comfortable with the costume and persona.” He preened the cropped hair just behind his seagull mask.

Jules had originally fled to the deck to escape the odious miasma of Porthos’ seasickness, and he had no intention of returning, given that they were expected to arrive at the port town of Neofilio within the hour. “Very well,” he sighed, and replaced the mask. Luckily they had allowed him to have one made to fit his face, instead of forcing him to wear some ancient hand-me-down soaked in the rank sweat of previous researchers. Gulliver melted away into the background, and after a moment Jules could hear him screeching at one of the sailors.

“Imagine having to wear that for your entire working life,” a light, warm tenor said from behind him. “Maybe he’s just forgotten what it feels like to show his face.”

Jules turned to see a slight, graceful young man in a rusty orange antelope mask with chin-length black hair fluttering around its edges. He frantically rummaged in his mind for a name. Fauna? Bam? 

“I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.” He could hear the smile behind the mask. “I’m Beau. Pleased to meet you…saltlick.”

They both burst out laughing. Those ritual endearments! En _deer_ ments, in this case.

“I’m Julian. Bonjour...glitter.” Jules suddenly realized there was no way he could smile at another person in a way they could see. He’d have to figure out how to use his tone and body language to compensate, as Beau had clearly learned to do. “My real name’s Jules, though.” Porthos had told him it wasn’t forbidden to tell his real name to other visitors, although he should be careful about how (and with whom) he used it.

“Convenient! I’m Ardhendu. There wasn’t any animal name that matched that.” A hint of sharpness seeped into his tone, but disappeared as swiftly as it had arrived. “Is this your first time in Ninten?”

“Yes. And you?”

Ardhendu’s voice flushed with enthusiasm. “Yes! I got really lucky—I only had to wait five years to get a turn. I finally got a chance when Tejas Kaniyar broke his leg and decided to take a seat in the Royal Academy.”

Jules made a noncommittal noise.

“I’m here for Bhaara, by the way, and I study agricultural engineering. What about you? How long did you have to wait?”

He coughed. “Uh, not too long. I’m in behavioral economics, sponsored by Lépouvante.”

There was a very slight pause. “Ah! They deal in cosmetics, right?”

“Yes, and also medical supplies and sundries.” 

“And you’re their first representative in Ninten? I don’t recall hearing of any others from that conglomerate.”

“Yes, my father thought it would be a good idea to study the conditions in more remote markets.”

“Your father?” 

Shit. He should have just said Lépouvante. _Shit shit shit._ What a stupid mistake. Porthos would have been almost physically wounded by the stupidity. Jules was suddenly grateful for the mask, although his ears were probably turning bright red. He cleared his throat and tried to keep his tone light. “Yes, Laurent Lépouvante. I’m afraid I’m a nepotism hire.”

“Well, you must be qualified even so. A powerful conglomerate like that wouldn’t choose someone who wasn’t competent to represent their interests.”

“Ah, I hope so.” An embarrassed laugh fell out of his stupid mouth. _You know what? Fuck it._ This man was a scientist, not a politician. “Actually, can I request your discretion?”

Another, even slighter pause. “Of course.”

He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I was sent here not because I was interested in studying Nintean culture, but as a chance to redeem myself. I, ah, have strayed from the path my father chose for me, and I may have dallied in places that he found…unfruitful.”

“I see.” Ardhendu paused again. Damn these masks! “Some parents know only of gardens, and don’t understand that an orchard takes years to become fruitful.” 

“Yes, exactly! And they may not value peaches if they expected potatoes.”

The Bhaaran nodded.

Jules took a deep breath. “I’ve been studying hard since I was given this assignment, but I’m completely out of my depth and afraid I’ll disgrace myself." He knew he didn’t need to mention that disgrace meant a withdrawal of parental funds, and possibly even disinheritance. 

The gazelle mask tilted slightly. “I think the Ninteans will give us a fair amount of leeway given that we’re not only foreigners but new to the country. Even the animal spirits we represent were foreign travelers. But I understand your concern.”

Jules tapped his fingers on the railing. “The thing is…I don’t speak Nintean.”

“Oh, I see—that is difficult. But you can still consult the handbook for the ritual phrases, yes?”

“Yes, thank heavens for the handbook! And my factor speaks Nintean, so he can handle arrangements at the port. But he isn’t allowed past Neofilio, as you know, so he won’t be able to help me on a daily basis.” 

“Your camp manager is likely to speak Faranése. They usually try to place you with someone who speaks a language that you understand, and as you know, about a quarter of the Nintean population is of Faranése descent. Many of them still speak it. And of course many of the other guests will speak it as well.” 

Julian actually _hadn’t_ known that (he’d spent most of his geography classes mooning over his distractingly handsome professor), but it wasn’t surprising considering how close Ninten was to Faráne. “That is comforting. But I—I could really use some help. And perhaps I could also be of help in other ways later.”

The mask turned toward him, and he strained to see the human eyes under its shade. Were they brown? No, they were grey, like the flickering glints in the glass-slick surface of the sea. What did that have to do with anything? _Get a grip on yourself, Jules._ “I’m not sure I’m the best choice for a guide,” Ardhendu finally replied. “But I’ll do my best to help. You do understand that I have research to do that will often take me away from the camp, though?”

Jules tried to keep his sigh of relief inaudible. “Yes, of course. I’ll be a good little flea and hop off onto the furniture when I’m not sucking your blood.”

Choked laughter erupted from behind the gazelle mask. “I doubt you’re _that_ bad.”

“Ooh, is that a challenge?”

“No! Definitely not.” His shoulders shook. “Please be gentle with me—I’m new at this too.”

Jules edged closer, using the rocking of the waves as cover. “We’ll just fumble our way through it together.”

—

They wound their slow, unsteady way through customs, registration, and the mandatory introductory lecture. Porthos had managed to clean himself up before they disembarked, and now he smelled pleasantly of the preserved ginger that he kept popping under the chin of his powder-blue bear mask. Jules’ stomach was beginning to rumble, and he was almost tempted to take a nibble of his towering, muscular aide. He had the feeling that Porthos might not mind if he did, although that was a path that even Jules was too prudent to take.

Finally they were shown to their rooms, and Jules was free to yank off his mask and flop down on the sofa with a loud sigh. “I can’t believe we have to go to a formal dinner and dance in two hours,” he complained, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the side table. “I need a nap after that bureaucratic purgatory!”

“You can nap all you want when you get to the campsite tomorrow.” Porthos placed his own mask on the mantel and strode into the next room to deposit their overnight luggage onto one of the beds; through the doorway Jules could see him open a suitcase, carefully unfolding and shaking out a royal blue morning coat. “Why don’t you take a bath while I hang up the clothes?” 

Technically, this qualified as insolence, but Porthos had been like a strapping, broad-shouldered nanny to him since he was fourteen years old, and had seen a great many things of which Jules’s father remained blissfully unaware. 

“Do they even have hot running water in this dump?” Jules swung up into a sitting position and kicked off his shoes. 

“Of course they do. They even have it in the campsites. Most of them, anyway. Now run along and finish your apple so you won’t be so peevish when it’s time to go.”

“I’m not PEEVISH—ugh, fine.” He stuck the apple between his teeth and sauntered off toward the bathroom, shedding clothing items on his way like an ambulatory autumn tree.

—

The dinner was long and boring and included speeches by costumed Ninteans; for some reason, certain locals (like Captain Gulliver) also took on animal spirit personas, either full-time or when performing certain public functions. To Jules’ relief, the lectures were in Faranése. They were given by the raccoon mayor of Neofilio, a pink llama, and a lop-eared yellow lapdog. All of them were wearing full animal suits, and they must be sweating terribly under those bright lights. The mayor was called Tom, but although the raccoon suit was baggy & unrevealing and “he” towered over the other speakers, the voice emerging from beneath the mask was lighter than that of most men. None of the speakers appeared to be male, in fact, and Jules remembered the chapter in the handbook that explained the pagan matriarchal nature of Nintean society. 

Roles for men were limited, it said, and most paths to power for them came through the nation’s only recognized religion, for which the locals had no name. It was unclear exactly what their beliefs were, but they worshiped a goddess that they called only Maika, meaning Mother. Most of the Nintean clergy lived in remote monasteries scattered about the islands, yet among their roles was the administration of the campsites where the animal guests stayed. 

Would the guests be expected to act like monks too? Porthos could barely manage to drag Jules out of bed by nine even when he hadn’t stayed up carousing the night before; on his own he’d probably see only two or three hours of daylight. What if they had to get up at four and take ice baths as grim, off-key bells tolled? The handbook hadn’t mentioned anything about that, and neither had Porthos—but Porthos probably wouldn’t have if he thought it would make Jules whine more.

Jules had managed to sit across from Ardhendu— _Beau_ , that is; he needed to remember that—although Porthos in his persona as Klaus loomed by his side like a real bear, glaring intently through the eyeholes of his mask at the delicate, self-possessed gazelle that his charge had chosen as a confidante. The questions that Porthos directed at Beau were polite but numerous, making it hard for Jules to get a word in edgewise. The red and yellow bird on Jules’ other side barely spoke to him, intent on her Rosiki conversation with the buxom pink octopus next to Beau.

The wine, however, was excellent. He’d heard that a century ago the Nintean vineyards were sour and difficult, grudgingly squeezing out a pinkish, acrid vintage, but only a year after the Kleismo, the few cases that someone had managed to smuggle out were like this—astonishingly rich, lush and complex, the deep sanguine ruby of pomegranates and with a flavor to match. It was almost too good to drink with dinner.

The food was excellent as well, even though there was very little meat: delicate pale fish with a crust of spiced nuts; buttery, blushing salmon with juniper berries and herbs; a saffron-scented pilaf with tender shreds of lamb, toasted almonds, and strips of candied orange peel; an array of cheeses pungent, smoky, and mild, with three kinds of fresh, chewy bread to cradle them; tangy chopped salads, preserved fruits, and a dizzying spread of cakes and pastries both familiar and exotic. 

It was his first time eating in public with the mask on, but it wasn’t difficult. The mask was designed to mold to his face only down to the tip of his nose; after that it flared out from his mouth and chin, continuing the line of his natural nose down to the tip of the horse’s muzzle. This allowed him space under its shade to use a fork or spoon and even to drink from most glasses. There was also a triangular air hole just below the tip of his real nose, covered by a loose-grained white mesh that blended with the white of the muzzle. Looking around the table, he could see that all of the other masks had this mesh-covered hole at nose level, although of course some animals’ faces (like Porthos’ angry-looking Deucher bear) were shorter than that of a horse, and there were a number of different designs. There were also a few bare-faced men scattered about the room—could they be monks?—but they were all sitting too far away to speak to. They must not be monks—their clothing and hairstyles were all different, and some were almost gaudy.

After dinner came the dance, but everyone was full and drowsy, and most of them stood around chatting in little groups, wasting the efforts of the masked musicians. Jules idly wondered if animals of the same type would cluster together, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Predators mingled with prey, and arctic animals with tropical birds.

He noticed that of the few dancers, two couples were both men, and no one seemed to care. He gathered his courage and turned to ask Beau to dance, but the elusive little deer had slipped off into the colorful forest of guests and was nowhere to be seen. Even Porthos had strayed from his side and was deep in conversation with one of the maskless men. Drat. Oh well—he should meet some other people too. 

Intimidated by the sea of enigmatic animal masks, he drifted in the direction of the nearest plain old human being. Or rather, gorgeous young human being. Come to think of it, most of the maskless men were inexplicably toothsome in a variety of ways; he’d expected a bunch of dour old wax-faced aldermen (or alder _women_ , given Ninten’s peculiarities). Without even turning his head, he could see an angular, magnetic bespectacled man in his sixties holding court by the punch bowl, a dark strapping Adonis with a brooding expression listening seriously to a frog in bright striped stockings, a cherubic youth with a halo of pale curls waving his hands excitedly at the Amazonian raccoon mayor, and, in the corner, Porthos competing with a quail woman for the attention of a frail, ethereal blond beauty with a long loose braid. Maybe they were professionals hired to entertain the guests, a sort of Nintean highbrow host club? That would be interesting.

Jules navigated through the throng and finally reached his target, a slender, sensitive-looking young man with flaxen hair and pale skin, strikingly paired with large black eyes and sooty brows. Could the combination possibly be natural? The hair, although enviably voluminous, looked real, and neither it nor the brows appeared to be dyed. “Bonjour, glitter,” he announced, emboldened by the wine. “You may call me Julian.”

Too late he realized that he was speaking Faranése instead of Nintean. Julian was a Faranése animal and therefore expected to use a Faranése greeting, but he really should have followed up with something in the local language. “I mean—”

The other man smiled. “That’s all right,” he answered in Faranése. “You’re a guest, not a permanent resident. We don’t expect you to use our obscure little dialect. I’m Abel, by the way. I’m the campsite manager for the town of Kepler.” 

Jules sighed quietly with relief. “So you’re a monk, then? Should I call you Brother Abel?”

“Technically, I suppose? No one really does that anymore, though. We take new names when we join, and that’s enough.”

“Oh—how dedicated! When did you join, if I may ask?” He wondered what Abel’s real name was, but it seemed intrusive to ask.

“I attended the seminary school at Ethbos for eight years first, so I was twenty-two when I took my vows. If you weren’t raised in a monastery, you need at least three years of schooling or training as a postulant, and then several more years as a novicate, to make sure it’s right for you. I’m still a novicate, but I was always sure this was what I wanted, even as a little boy.”

“That’s quite a lot of making sure! Are many of you raised in monasteries?”

“About three-quarters of us are. Originally it was just orphans and widows' sons, but now a lot of poorer people give young boys to the monasteries to give them a chance at a better life. If you’re a monastery brat, you skip the postulant period and go straight to the novicate at around eighteen or twenty. 

“Praxis over there—” he inclined his head to indicate the Byronic beefcake Julian had noticed earlier, “—was raised in a monastery, but got a scholarship to the management program at Ethbos. He’s in his novicate period, too. Ordinarily you don’t become a campsite manager until you’re confirmed, but several managers were…called to other work this year, so some of us were brought out early. It’s a very specialized field, so most full brothers who've trained for it are already managing campsites or doing related jobs. I was lucky to be doing work study at Kepler when I was called out, so I have an advantage over managers who were called to unfamiliar places. We all have a lot of experience, though,” he added hastily, “and we have great teams to work with, so wherever you go, you can expect good management.”

A fluffy chocolate-colored rabbit rushed up to enfold Abel in an enthusiastic hug, effectively ending the information session. Jules was trying to decide where to go next when Beau appeared at his side. “Have you talked to any of the other campsite managers yet? Or are you only interested in Kepler? I can do my research pretty much anywhere, but I was hoping for somewhere in the mountains. Kepler’s on the edge of Kaitos, but it’s mostly hill country.”

It took Jules a moment to realize what he meant. He knew there were different campsites, but somehow he hadn’t realized that if he and Beau were to work together, they’d have to manage to be assigned to the same one. He’d been required to list three preferred campsites on his initial paperwork, but the handbook had been unforthcoming on the selection process, saying only that they would receive their campsite assignments by noon of the day after the arrival banquet. Even though he knew each campsite was in a different town, his mental impression of Ninten was so tiny that he had vaguely assumed that the towns were more on the order of neighborhoods and one could travel between them in a matter of an hour or two. Stupid. He’d seen the maps, but hadn’t thought about what they meant. He couldn’t even remember which campsites he’d listed—probably Porthos had picked them out. “How do we, ah, deal with the assignment issue?”

Beau paused as if startled, but his shoulders quickly relaxed. “We—”

Porthos chose this moment to return, pulling Jules aside to murmur, “I’ve just found out that this party is a major factor in the assignment process. All the campsite managers are here and you need to speak with as many of them as possible to determine the best places to go and make a good impression. So don’t waste your time trying to get laid.”

“I am _not_ trying to—ugh. I am _making impressions_ , like you said.”

“Good. Keep doing that. You should go talk to Keeler from Enkil, he seems helpful and it’s a more urban area.” He tilted his head toward the fragile blond with the braid.

Jules opened his mouth to argue, but realized there was no point. He was starting to feel a premature nostalgia for Porthos’ bossiness; soon there would be no one to look out for him, no one to scold him, no one to reassure and indulge him. He’d talk to the other managers to please Porthos, although he’d have to find Beau at some point and tell him to pick out where they went. He’d never been out in the world all on his own, and he was too much of a coward to start now.

—

The envelope came the next morning, slipped silently under his door. Porthos was busy packing, so Jules got to it first. He was going to Kepler! Beau must have assumed despite his assurances that Jules really wanted to go there. What a sweetheart!

Or had he? Maybe Abel had overheard Beau’s remarks and thought that Jules wanted to go to Kepler but Beau didn’t. Maybe they had been assigned to different islands entirely…

He paced to the window, paced back, then put down his coffee. He wasn’t going to need it today. He wandered into the bedroom and plunked down onto his bed.

“No,” said Porthos automatically from the other bed, folding a shirt. “You need to—”

“I’m just SITTING DOWN.”

“That’s what you always say. We have to leave in an hour and you haven’t braided your hair yet.”

Jules pouted even though Porthos wasn’t looking. “You’re not going to do it?”

“I’m not going to be there to do it for you for the next six months. I want to make sure you can do it right.”

He jumped up and stalked off to the bathroom to grab his comb, yanking it through the fine straight hair that somehow still managed to be frizzy and sticky. He wasn’t going to cry. Porthos thought he was some kind of _baby_ who couldn’t even do his own hair—no, he was just being gruff so it would be easier for Jules to leave him. And easier for him to leave Jules. The backward sweetness of this idea brought tears to his eyes again, and he sighed.

He was almost done when Porthos came in behind him. “That looks good,” he said quietly. “Just make sure you check by the ears and near the nape of the neck—the hair is a different texture there, so it doesn’t behave in the same way.” He gently tucked in a loose strand. 

“Thank you,” Jules sniffed. 

Porthos laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to be fine. It’ll be confusing at first, but you’re a quick study.” He handed Jules the blue mane and watched while he began to pin it to the Faranése braid weaving its slightly unsteady way down the center line of his head. 

“I know.”

“So, Kepler,” he said after a bit. “That’s not bad either. It’s a bit rustic, but it’s near Selios if you want to go somewhere more civilized. And I hear Abel graduated with top honors from the best management program they have, the one at Ethbos.”

“Yes, he seemed pleasant,” Jules said absentmindedly. He placed the last pin and shook out the mane so most of it fell to one side like a demure blue waterfall. It wouldn’t stay that way on the ferry to the main island, of course, but it would do. “Let’s go,” he said with deliberate casualness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory disclaimers: 
> 
> 1) This crossover is specifically a version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp; I've never played the other games. I have made no attempt at strict accuracy or deep research, and partly to cover my sloppy tracks, the story is set in an earlier historical period which is probably best described as "steampunk times." 
> 
> 2) Just to make my dumb pun clear: I meant “whicker” to refer to the noise that a horse makes; I’m not misspelling “wicker.” :D
> 
> Characters with plural identities, in case this gets confusing:
> 
> Jules = Julian = Phobos  
> Ardhendu = Beau = Selene  
> Porthos = Klaus  
> Vik (short for Viktor) = Vicks  
> The oracle = Katrina = Ludmila  
> Magiras = Cook 
> 
> Places:
> 
> Baten (adj., Batean): The largest district in Ninten, next to Kaitos. It spans a variety of terrain including plains, forests, and hills.  
> Bhaara (adj., Bhaaran): A country far to the southeast of Ninten; vaguely similar to India.  
> Calosson: A port city in the southeast of Faráne.  
> Deucheland (adj., Deucher): Sorta kinda Germany. Rude people have been known to refer to it as “Doucheland.”  
> Enkil: A town in Baten, and the campsite located within it.  
> Ethbos: The largest and most prestigious monastery school; it offers secondary, undergraduate, and graduate programs in a variety of disciplines. Rich parents pay a lot of money to send their sons there, either to become monks or just to get some classy schooling. A big moneymaker for the order (as are the campsites). Some of the other schools are Deithos, Praxmos, and Selios.  
> Faráne (adj., Faranése): Kinda sorta France, but also Mediterranean-ish in climate. The inhabitants tend to be blond, even though Faráne is only a little further north & west than Ninten (it was probably invaded by northern barbarians at some point in its history).  
> Kaitos (adj., Kaitoan): The mountain district of Ninten, where the mines are. Extra mysterious. Outsiders can only get in there if they have at least five personal references from Kaitoans or people they trust.  
> Kepler: A town on the edge of Baten, and the campsite located within it.  
> Neofilio: Ninten’s only port city, which occupies most of the tiny island it clings to.  
> Ninten (adj., Nintean--or Ninny, if you're very rude): an island country that's 5% Japan, 35% Greece, and 60% my bullshit. It's a chain of islands, but most of the population lives on the biggest island, which I am too lazy to name despite having spent an hour looking up movie titles from the late 80s and early 90s to come up with puns for chapter titles.  
> Rosya (adj., Rosiki)--more or less Russia-ish. They're also a minority population within Ninten.  
> Sleipnir: A town on the edge of Baten, and the campsite located within it. The campsite is smaller than Kepler's. 
> 
> Royal (and Kapla, if you’re reading this): I just wanted to assure you that there was absolutely no cilantro at the welcome banquet. In fact, Ninteans call it "witch's weed" or "devil parsley" and exterminate it whenever they find it.
> 
> Why do monks from a pagan religion have the names Cain and Abel? Because, uh, those are traditional but unrelated names from Nintean mythology. Abel was a humble woodcutter who showed hospitality to a god in disguise and was rewarded with a garden that bore new ripe fruit every morning, and Cain was a trickster who stole sugar from the gods.
> 
> You may have noticed that I aged up Cook about 40 years (he's actually in his early seventies, but he looks younger). This is NOT a dig at all the teenagers who keep calling him and Bering "old men," I swear. There are reasons. :D
> 
> Nintean Highbrow Host Club, reblog if you agree:  
> Keeler = Tamaki  
> Abel = Haruhi  
> Cook = Kyoya  
> Praxis = Mori  
> Ethos = Honey


	2. Rein Man

Praxis stood in front of the mirror, shifting from one foot to the other and trying not to tug at his new clothes: a crisp collared shirt, fitted vest, high-waisted trousers, and shiny black boots. They felt tight, revealing, and strangely light after the heavy, loose cassock he’d worn all his life. He’d been measured for them, of course, and as part of his training he’d practiced dressing up in some of the outfits they had at school, but he’d never gone out in public in secular clothes before the trip to Neofilio two days ago, much less tried to work in them. 

Dressing like this was part of the job, though, so he’d better get used to it. As a campsite manager, he was allowed to choose his own style to some extent, but there were all sorts of themed events that required their own flamboyant outfits, and sometimes he’d even be expected to wear dresses. The guests must be entertained, and one of the most entertaining things to foreigners, apparently, was to see their hosts in getups that would make even a toddler think twice. 

Maybe he could get away with wearing more comfortable clothes if the rest of the staff dressed up? He’d already seen his new aide Ethos looking adorable in a golden sundress scattered with daisies, and Deimos would probably look stunning (if terrifying) in those short slinky Faranése shifts. Maybe one made of knives. He was already made of knives, so why not dress the part?

 _Deimos._ Shudder. Praxis didn’t know what sin he had committed that led him to be punished with overseeing that lunatic, but it must have been something dire. Maybe, he reflected, it was his secret lack of faith. If there really was a goddess who had provided for him all his life in place of the mother he had never known, he probably deserved any punishment he got for not believing in her.

It didn’t make sense on a human level, though. He’d heard Deimos had been at Kepler, apparently doing fine; he’d even had Cain to keep him company. Why had they transferred him here to Sleipnir after Bazin the delivery boy was called to Kaitos, instead of sending a new brother? They could even have hired a secular local—it was more important for delivery boys to know the terrain and be good reliable riders & drivers than it was for them to be devout. 

Why, for that matter, would they suddenly call both the previous manager and the delivery boy to Kaitos? What was going on there that was so urgent and required those particular skills? He’d probably never find out unless he was called there as well, and the idea was not a comforting one. Brothers (and sisters) called to Kaitos rarely returned, and when they did, they didn’t talk about it. Maybe Deimos knew something—he was Kaitoan—but if so, he wasn’t talking either. Not that he had ever talked much.

Maybe Deimos had had a falling out with Cain. Maybe that was why he’d been acting so angry since he got here. Praxis didn’t remember him being angry back at the monastery where they grew up—back then it was either a smug little smirk, or no expression at all. 

In any case, he had to figure out how to give Deimos orders in a way that wouldn’t get him murdered in his sleep. And he’d also have to find a new egg supplier before the paskavki-making class tomorrow morning, so the guests wouldn’t have to dye eggs with mysteriously thin, weak, translucent shells (or, for that matter, grope around the campsite the day after for hidden eggs that were likely to break if you gripped them firmly). And find an exterminator to check out the disturbing piles of sawdust under yurt platform #7, which until the problem was fixed now supported a plain staff yurt instead—his own, in fact, since as the manager he was the only staff member who didn’t share quarters and he didn’t want to put anyone else on a possibly termite-riddled platform, much less two to four people. And send a message to the regional supply center to ask for replacement blue silk, because the dye on that last batch came off right on your hands if they were the slightest bit damp. And have all nut products removed and the menu adjusted and the entire kitchen scrubbed down, because the new Antonio had only thought to mention his deadly nut allergy when he docked at Neofilio. Maybe Antonio could eat the ants that had been infesting the pantry instead, hahaha. Ha.

But for now, it was time to go to the courtyard and wait for the guests to arrive. Sleipnir was a small camp, so there were only eight of them. Only eight cats to herd. Eight clever, willful, ravenous cats with diplomatic immunity and an insatiable desire to poke their noses into places they shouldn’t be. 

Praxis liked cats, though. He was fairly sure he could take good care of these, while (hopefully) also keeping them from destroying their surroundings. After all, wasn’t this what he was trained for?

He adjusted his tipsy cravat, took a deep breath, and marched out the door, remembering at the last second not to fall down the steps. 

—

The arrival went reasonably well: the guests seemed happy to be there, nobody had immediately complained about their yurt, and nobody had groped him like that drunken asshole at the party in Neofilio, although there were a couple of suspiciously fervent and lingering hugs considering that he had never met any of them in his life. 

Praxis had learned in school that some guests made a game of trying to seduce the managers and other staff, and that you had to walk a delicate line to avoid offending them. It wasn’t forbidden to sleep with them—Maika’s servants were only required to be celibate in the sense that they weren’t allowed to marry or have children—but you didn’t want to give them the impression that you (and by extension all the staff) were there for their sexual convenience. 

The guests had all handed in their first week’s rent in the form of vouchers for various supplies which would have to be ferried over from Neofilio and picked up at the regional distribution center: metal, lumber, paper (much of it in the form of books), textiles (including yarn and raw fibers), and “preserves” (any non-perishable foods, beverages, or ingredients, especially rice, coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, and spices, none of which did well in Ninten’s climate, even with the blessing of the goddess).

Praxis had already telephoned ahead to Neofilio and the regional distribution center (they had a telephone in the manager’s office, which you were supposed to keep secret from the guests except in case of dire emergencies so they wouldn’t spend all day clogging up the line) but he still had to give Deimos the vouchers and other paperwork. He was not looking forward to the task, but he was going to have to deal with the man sooner or later and for Maika’s sake he had to stop being a coward.

He found Deimos in the kitchen lodge, helping Ethos fix a chair. Praxis cleared his throat. “Hello, Deimos. Here are the vouchers and other mail for Neofilio. That should be it for your first trip.” He held out the bag, feeling stiff and awkward. 

Deimos climbed to his feet and snatched the mail, holding it as if it were dirty. He stared at Praxis with murder in his pale eyes, stared for so long that Praxis started to wonder if he were actually trying to kill him through telekinesis. Or maybe if he was supposed to say something else.

“Uh, that’s all. Have a…good trip?”

Deimos shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard, let out a disgusted huff, and stalked off.

“Yikes,” said Ethos.

“What did I do?” Praxis asked plaintively.

“You’re supposed to put the mail in the carriage house mailbox, or tell me to do it,” Ethos told him. “If you hand it to him directly that’s like saying he should have left already and you need to prompt him. And the mail isn’t supposed to go out until tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. Shit.” How did Ethos know that? When Praxis was an aide, he had always given the mail directly to the delivery boy--for security reasons, he was told. It must be a regional difference.

“But still, I don’t know why he was _that_ mad. It’s not like you spat on his mother’s grave or something.”

“Well, I did do _something_. But it was over ten years ago, so it seems a little excessive to hold it against me for that long.”

Ethos climbed out from under the table and dusted himself off. “Oh, did you grow up at the same monastery?”

“Yeah. I got there first though. I was given to Maika as a baby, and he came in at seven or eight, a little after Cain. I don’t know if you know him.”

“Oh, yes! I was at Kepler for the first stage of my internship. He and Deimos were very close.”

“Yeah, they’re from the same village. You know how clannish Kaitoans are. Cain decided Deimos was his little brother, even though they were basically the same age and we’re all supposed to be brothers anyway. He didn’t treat him that well, though. I got the feeling he just wanted a minion to boss around.”

“It sounds like you and Cain didn’t get along very well.”

Praxis scratched his head. “Not really. He seemed to have it out for me right away. He made this game of telling me different insulting stories about what he thought my original family must have been like, and why they gave me up. And where I was going to go for the holidays while everyone else went back to their families.”

“Did you stay in the dorms for the holidays, then?”

“Yeah.”

“That must have been lonely.”

“It was all right. They trusted me, so by the time I was five or six I got to run around the grounds on my own and play. Or help the brothers with their work. Sometimes they’d tell me stories, or the cooks would let me help them decide what to make. Which was mostly gingerbread, when I had a say.” 

Ethos laughed. “Expensive tastes for a little boy!” 

“What can I say? Gingerbread is the best. Especially when it has bits of candied ginger in it.”

“Hmm. It is pretty good, but I might have to fight you to defend the honor of lemon bars.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had those.”

“Oh no! We’ll have to make some soon so I can convert you to the true faith.”

Praxis couldn’t stifle a laugh. 

“So…" Ethos glanced sideways at him. "What did you do to Deimos? If you want to say.”

“I uh…well, for some reason he decided to leave a note on my pillow one day. With a knife stabbed through it.”

He gasped. “What did the note say?”

“Just my name.”

“Hmm. Cryptic. So what did you do?”

“Turned it in, of course. We weren’t supposed to have knives.”

“Did you tell them who left it there?”

“Well, yes. He _was_ threatening to stab me, after all.”

Ethos considered. “I’ve never seen Deimos act violent or threatening before. Are you sure it was actually him who did it?”

“I guess in theory it could have been Cain, but he would have had to get the knife from Deimos, and then get him to write my name on the paper. It was definitely his handwriting. And we’d all seen him with that knife. He liked to do tricks with it.”

“Huh.”

“So if it was Cain, Deimos would still have known about it, at least.”

“So what happened to him?”

“Not that much, really. I think he had to do extra chores for a couple weeks? That was just before I left for school at Ethbos, though. Which was probably a good thing, because Cain started talking about how he was going to murder me, and that was a little distracting.”

Ethos turned a screwdriver over in his hands. “Cain does seem to have um, intense relationships, I guess.”

“Was he like that at Kepler, too, when you were there?”

“He never threatened me, if that’s what you mean. He was seeing someone there, though, and they fought a lot. Even in front of the guests, sometimes.”

“Ugh. Why am I not surprised? I’m amazed they still let him do campsite work.”

“Well, he got called to Kaitos at the same time as Encke and Bering and the others. So I guess he’s not doing it anymore.”

Praxis frowned. “I didn’t know that. I wonder what they’re doing up there.”

“Could they be building a new campsite, maybe?”

“They don’t even let _us_ into Kaitos, much less guests. And they haven’t started a new campsite for what, 20 or 30 years?”

Ethos shrugged. “I don’t know. But they must have some good reason for whatever they’re doing there. And I guess we have plenty to worry about here without speculating about other districts!”

“Oof, you are definitely right.” Praxis crouched down to look at the chair. “Do you need a hand with that?”

—

Now that the emergency egg shipment had arrived and proved acceptable, Praxis was actually starting to enjoy the Paska events, even if he didn’t have time to make a paskavka himself. It had taken a little coaxing to get everyone to the egg-dying event, but he’d scheduled it in the kitchen lodge right after the traditional sunrise Paska pancake breakfast, so they were full and contented and didn’t have a chance to run off to their studies first. One of the first things you learned in the managerial program was that if you really wanted people to show up to something, you had to a) feed them and b) make sure it was either the first or the last thing they did that day. You could also schedule just before a meal to keep them hanging, but that was best saved for things that you wanted to keep short, like staff meetings.

The warm, serene honey scent of beeswax filled the air. Some of the guests were using the traditional osta to draw designs on the eggs with melted wax, while others drew on them with wax crayons or simply dipped the eggs into different cups of dye. Every so often someone’s osto burst into flames, and the table burst into giggles. Luckily, no one’s mask had caught on fire. At least, not yet.

“Oh—Praxis!” Olivia the white cat (an entomologist from Ispania) beckoned to him. “Did the mail leave yet? I want to send this.” She pulled an envelope out of her pocket and waved it at him.

“I’ll go check,” he told her, taking the envelope. Deimos was probably about to leave, if he hadn’t left already. He should just dump the thing in the carriage house mailbox and leave it to fate (and avoid a possible pillow stabbing), but something in him felt uneasy and guilty.

He went to the hitching post by the carriage house, and found that he was just in time: Deimos was already in the seat of the wagon. Tibby and Queenie stomped and nodded their huge shaggy heads, but Deimos sat frowning intently at something red in his hand—a flower? When he noticed Praxis, he quickly dropped it out of sight onto the wagon floor, and straightened up, his face expressionless.

“Deimos,” Praxis greeted him, trying not to sound condescending or nervous or…whatever it was about him that irritated Deimos. “I just got this last piece of mail a moment ago, if you could—”

Deimos snatched it away, although this time he seemed not so much offended as desperate to leave.

“I, um…I wanted to apologize for…um, for giving you the mail earlier. Ethos told me that you—that we don’t do it that way here. I didn’t mean any offense.”

Deimos stared down at him for several agonizing seconds, and finally gave him a slight nod. Even from that lofty angle, he looked suddenly tired and sad.

“Do you miss Cain?” Praxis blurted out.

His face contorted. “What do _you_ care,” he hissed, and unlocked the brake with a violent jerk. The horses broke into a jouncing trot, and the wagon pulled away, leaving Praxis staring openmouthed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our world the lemon bar wasn’t invented until the 20th century, but there seems to have been no actual reason for this, since the Victorians were already using lemon curd. The people in Ninten's timeline were just smarter, I guess.
> 
> Paska = Easter-ish. In this case not Christian, just a spring solstice festival about fertility and renewal, hence eggs.
> 
> paskavka (plural, paskavki): the Nintean version of pysanky (Ukrainian batiked easter eggs). 
> 
> osto (plural, osta): a Nintean kistka. Kistka literally means "bone," so I went with the Greek word. It’s a pen made by pushing a small narrow cone of metal through a hole at the end of a small stick and then wrapping a lot of wire around them to hold them together. You then take a little bit of beeswax and stick it in the larger end of the cone, then hold the narrow end in a candle flame to melt the wax. It’s probably not supposed to set the entire end of the stick on fire, but that’s what often happens. :D


	3. Phobos Is Burning

Porthos had been right as usual: it really was fine.

Beau had, through whatever providential means, been assigned to Kepler as well. He and Jules had quite a bit of time to chat on the ferry and on the subsequent carriage ride, although Beau was frequently distracted by the scenery and also by the coachman, a cheerful, curly-haired young fellow by the name of Helios—why did they need to know his name, anyway?—who insisted on giving loud informative speeches on what seemed to be every tree, rock, stream, building, person, and animal they passed. A couple of the visitors, including Beau, did their best to write down his observations, even while hampered by the jouncing of the carriage. Jules hazarded a surreptitious peek at Beau’s notes, but they were in the Bhaaran alphabet and he couldn’t decipher them.

While technically a campsite in that it contained tents and was located in the barbaric Nintean wilderness, Kepler was essentially an estate, complete with courtyard, stables, gardens, pastures, storage sheds, a workshop, and a carriage house. It lacked only a central manor house. The spring weather was mild, and Helios explained that the usual gathering place for the guests was in the (elaborately furnished) courtyard. In case of inclement weather, they could retire to the old temple or the lodge in which meals were prepared and served.

Abel had left Neofilio early that morning and was already there to meet them when they arrived. He showed each of them to their tents in turn, but Beau lingered by the baggage cart to oversee the unloading of his luggage. Perhaps he had delicate equipment in there? Who knew what sort of arcane mechanisms agricultural engineers carried around….

Most of the guests had stayed there before, so Abel left the others after a few words in front of their tents. He came in with Jules though, and spent a few minutes explaining the features. 

The shabby, leaky little tent Jules had been dreading turned out to be a large and airy yurt of the sort that might house an entire family of nomads. It sat atop a sturdy wooden platform, and featured not only electric lighting but indoor plumbing, tucked away in a nook behind a screen. 

The yurt had obviously been made and furnished specifically for Julian the unicorn, since the fiction was that it was his own tent brought from home. Julian was known for studying the heavens, and the walls and furniture were a deep midnight blue scattered with stars; combined with the round dome shape of the yurt, it felt like being in a planetarium.  
  
On the nightstand lay another handbook explaining the resources and rules of the camp—thankfully it was only a tiny fraction as long as the massive tome issued by the Nintean authorities about the visitor project itself. When Jules picked it up, he found a blood-red poppy nestled between its pages like a bookmark. 

He held the flower up to the light to admire it, and Abel paled before turning a nearly identical shade of red. Was he angry? “I am _so_ sorry about that,” the manager gritted, snatching away the poppy. “I’ll get that out of your way right now.” He stormed out the door and down the platform steps, looking wildly about him for whatever dastardly criminal had dared to leave a flower in a tent. Were poppies taboo in Nintean culture, maybe? Was it considered unlucky to bring cut flowers indoors? 

Jules caught a glimpse of a moving figure in the distance, quickly consumed by the shadows of the forest. He was fairly sure the hair was black, although it could have been a hood. Abel tensed like a dog spotting a squirrel, and Jules had the feeling that his own foreign presence was the only leash that kept him from leaping out in pursuit.  
  
“What was that?” Jules asked. 

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Abel relaxed so quickly it seemed almost practiced. “Sometimes the staff from neighboring camps like to play pranks—harmless, of course. It’s an unofficial tradition. I was just a little annoyed that they got us first.”

“I’m sure you’ll get your revenge on them soon,” Jules laughed.

“Oh yes, I already have a few things in mind.” Abel’s tone was light, but he twisted the stem of the poppy until it frayed and split.

—

Even novices like Jules had heard the unofficial rules about investigation: play nice, don’t probe too deeply or obviously into topics that seem sensitive, give your hosts good presents, don’t avoid too many camp activities or run off without letting them know where you’re going. 

The persistently unruly or singleminded were told very politely that the camp was full and they needed to leave to make room for new guests. This wasn’t even a lie: there were always about ten people on the waiting list, who stayed in Neofilio for the entire six months doing what research they could and hoping for an opening at a campsite. Since it was illegal for foreigners to wander about the country unsupervised (even animal spirits had to follow rules), transgressors were escorted back to Neofilio, their notes often mysteriously “lost” in transit, and any further applications they submitted were never accepted. 

Lesser offenses or even just lackluster gifting might result in “accidental” delays or oversights regarding items you had requested, or the sudden unavailability of all staff when you wanted to go on an expedition that required an escort. Or you might be allowed to stay the full six months but not be allowed back in later.

You had to be either modest or subtle in your investigations: pick a very narrow, specific field of inquiry, or propose something so generalized and widespread that it would be impossible for you to collect enough meaningful data to draw any conclusions. Most of them did the former: sponsors that had been sending representatives to Ninten for decades could afford to take the long view and send people in to study the role of squash plants in bawdy songs or the various types of footwear illustrated in illuminated manuscripts, and later try to piece together something meaningful from the constellation of widely-spaced points. As the only representative of a new sponsor, though (not to mention his personal stake in the matter), Jules figured he needed to head in the other direction, at least on the surface.

He was fairly sure that his application had been accepted _because_ of his demonstrated fecklessness and lack of focus, not in spite of it. Therefore, he needed to play the part of spoiled rich brat making mere half-hearted stabs in the general direction of anything resembling work. Luckily, this role came naturally to him. 

The mercantile nature of his sponsor should come in handy, too: he had created a bland and blatantly commercial survey asking people about their habits and tastes in cosmetics and personal care products. The peasantry probably bathed once a month using soap they made themselves, but this would just make him look more ignorant and thoughtless. He would be not a scientist, but a glorified market researcher, and this should make his hosts underestimate him while also giving him a plausible reason to talk to basically everyone. 

Jules had only the loosest of plans for his _real_ research, based mainly on poking his nose into everyone’s business until he found weak or sore spots, which he would then investigate and exploit. His instinct for gossip had never let him down.

And even if all else failed, he’d have the opportunity to get a sample of whatever it was that they sometimes gave out in those metal “treat” tins. Rumor had it that it was anything from rare seeds to opium to gems to some type of new chemical that cured disease; no one who had received them would talk about the contents, presumably because they wanted to keep receiving more and blabbering would be a sure way to get cut off. 

His greatest weakness was, as he had confessed to Beau, his ignorance of the language. As it was, his information was only as good as his translator chose to make it, unless he was talking to a Faranése speaker. He wasn’t even sure about the accuracy of the Nintean version of his survey; Porthos had translated it, and he had only studied Nintean as a hobby.

This made Beau of vital importance to him, even outside of his ~~cute butt~~ knowledge of the culture. Jules didn’t know for sure that he could trust him, of course—presumably he was there to find out Ninten’s secrets as well—but he seemed sincere, and for god’s sake he was an engineer. They weren’t exactly known for their cunning duplicity. 

They were, however, known for their industry and ingenuity, qualities that could both help and hinder Jules. Beau was friendly and helpful, but he had been serious when he told Jules that he had his own work to focus on, and it was becoming a challenge to figure out how to spend time with him that wasn’t also spent with all the other guests. He’d tried casually tagging along on one of Beau’s farm expeditions, with the excuse of administering his survey to the farmer and her family, but Beau’s own investigations took him out into the fields and Jules ended up left behind in the farmhouse to talk to the husband, with shrieking children tugging at every limb with sticky fingers. And it was impossible to talk privately on the way there and back, with Helios the ~~village idiot~~ coachman acting as their overly cheerful and loquacious chaperone.

Jules did manage to see Beau’s face once though, when he invited him over to his yurt for tea. Guests weren’t supposed to take off their masks in front of each other, the handbook said, but it was tolerated as long as they were careful not to let any Ninteans see their faces. When Beau pulled off the antelope mask, Jules instantly understood why the rule existed: he was suddenly no longer Beau but Ardhendu, even though Jules had never seen Ardhendu’s proper face before. The difference was subtle yet profound; they were both careful, gentle and thoughtful, but Ardhendu was more wary and sharp—and yet somehow more vulnerable—than the naive, sweet Beau. His nose was bigger than Jules had imagined, his brows heavier, and his chin more stubborn, but somehow it was all more perfectly Ardhendu than anything he could have come up with in his head. 

Jules was so used to the masks now that removing them felt like they were taking their clothes off, and in the starry enveloping closeness of the tent he had to almost physically restrain himself from reaching out to touch and kiss him. Ardhendu, possibly sensing this, dropped his eyes and hastily picked up his tea cup. Their subsequent conversation was cordial, but tinged with awkwardness. Jules was beginning to understand how shy he was under his veneer of serene composure. 

—

This evening Abel had scheduled a group expedition to the nearby hot springs, only a ten-minute walk away. Jules wasn’t looking forward to the mineral stench, but many of the staff were going as well and he keenly anticipated ~~seeing them naked~~ listening to what they said under the influence of the mulled wine that seemed to make its appearance at every activity and most meals. And, of course, spending more time with Beau.

They filed out to the hot springs in languid groups, many of the guests not bothering to wear anything other than masks and dressing gowns and sandals. Some of the women had stayed behind, since nudity was the rule in the hot spring (other than the masks, of course), and not all of them felt comfortable bathing with the men. 

The setup embodied rustic minimalism: a shower house, a fire pit, a few benches and smooth lantern-strewn rocks, and the hot springs themselves: one larger one and several smaller, like Ninten's own islands. Jules wondered how they were supposed to manage showering with the masks on—they were water-resistant, but not completely waterproof—but discovered that guests and staff showered in shifts, and there were shelves just inside the door where they could leave them. If he were a painter he would have sketched the rows of masks in the eerie, quivering copper light: sheep, rabbit, horse, antelope, monkey, deer, bird, bear, and dog. For the first time it occurred to him that not every animal in the legends was of a type native to Ninten; he’d have to remember to ask someone about that.

As he stepped back out, Jules spotted another red poppy tucked between two rocks, almost as if it had grown there. There were no others, though, and in fact he hadn’t seen any actually growing out of the ground since he docked at Ninten. He stooped to pick it up, then stuffed it into the pocket of his robe, lest it upset Abel again. He wondered if all the inter-campsite pranks involved leaving a flower in someone else’s territory: it seemed harmless and even sweet compared to the kind of pranks he’d seen (and participated in) at university. Then again, they _were_ monks. It was sometimes hard to remember that.

He looked around, just in case the poppy-planting perpetrator might be nearby, and spotted a flicker of motion in the nearby trees. It was almost dark out by now, though, and he wasn’t even sure the movement was of human origin.

Oh, well. He picked up a drink from the pot over the fire, and wove through the paths among the steaming turquoise pools to one of the smaller ones, where Beau was already soaking along with Aurora the penguin and Lucky the mummified dog. He left his robe and sandals on a rock and slid into the pool between Beau and Lucky.

“Julian!” enthused the penguin woman, who if he remembered correctly was a botanist from…some country up north. Presumably one where they had saunas, because she seemed completely at ease. “I saw you found a poppy! Where did it come from, do you know?”

He blinked. “It was just sitting there on the rocks.”

“May I see it? I heard someone else found one too yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to examine it.”

Jules got up and turned to fish through his robe for the poppy, giving anyone who cared to look a bit of a show. It was a little crumpled from his pocket, but he sat back down and handed it to her. “Don’t let Abel see it though—he gets very upset about them.”

“Why is that?” asked Lucky.

“Some kind of prank by staff from another campsite, he said. They sneak into each other’s camps and leave things there, apparently.”

Aurora held the poppy up to her eyeholes. “That is very strange. This looks like _Papaver somniferum_ , the opium poppy, but you see here that where there should be four petals, with the black patches around the center making a cross, there are instead five. It is also curious that another camp would have access to a fresh poppy, since in Ninten they grow only on the mountains of Kaitos.”

“We _are_ near the Kaitoan border,” Beau pointed out. “Maybe some of them spread out into Baten.”

“Yes, but it is too wet down here for them to grow. Poppies like the dry ground, with much sun. The only place dry enough, with the right soil for them, is in the mountains.”

Beau took a sip of wine and pondered. “I wonder if Kepler staff also leave poppies at rival camps, or if they have a different signature flower. Or some other item.” Julian had wondered this as well. He also wondered how Beau would react if he moved just a _tiny_ bit closer.

Aurora nudged him. “You should ask Helios, Beau! I think he likes you.” 

Between the mulled wine inside and hot water outside, Jules’ consciousness was already melting into a pleasant soup, but her laugh was still much too loud.

“What?” Beau coughed. “No, he’s just…friendly.” 

“Well, maybe he’ll be friendly enough to answer questions like that. Abel is very nice, but he is good at avoiding questions.”

“As if Helios would even _know_ ,” Jules scoffed without thinking. “He’s dumb as rocks.”

Everyone turned to look at him. _Shit._ He suddenly missed Porthos.

“Rocks have a knowledge of their own,” Aurora told him seriously. “If you know their language, they will tell you many things.”

Jules stuck his mug back under his mask and let out a noncommittal grunt. God, he was turning into his father. Then again, he couldn’t imagine his father sitting in a hot spring wearing a blue horse mask and talking to an alarmingly bosomy naked penguin woman about the wisdom of rocks. He would rather _not_ imagine that, thank you.

“Abel seems pretty calm, though,” Lucky said. “He doesn’t take offense if you ask questions. With some of them it’s like—” He drew his finger across his throat.

Jules sat back and let himself drift, taking in the scene. Thirsty, unwary animals gathered around a misty, shimmering watering hole. Was something watching them, waiting for them to drop their guard? The world began to collapse into blobs of light and dark, moving shapes like paper cutouts, shifting and merging. He was dimly aware of Aurora rising up from the water like an avian Aphrodite and wandering off, saying something about getting sausages; Lucky snoring on the shoulder of someone who’d wandered by and slipped into Aurora’s place, Beau sitting straight as a…as an arrow, alert in spite of everything. An antelope, watching for predators. He would never get caught. Jules wouldn’t let them.

He leaned closer to ask Beau if he’d seen anyone lurking near the camp, but before the words could arrange themselves in an organized line and file out of his mouth, his knee brushed against _oh my_ , Beau’s thigh under the water. It electrified him, and maybe that was why Beau leaped up as if he’d been shocked, mumbling something about _excusemeijusthaveto_ , and gathered his robe around him before fleeing into the night.

Jules gathered his unwieldy limbs and climbed out of the pool, suddenly heavy but instantly more awake as the cold air hit his wet skin. Beau was nowhere to be seen. He might have gone to the shower, to the privy, back to his tent, off to the woods to climb a tree…who knew. For a fleeting second, a voice in his mind asked if Beau was really worth all this, but he shushed it. He couldn’t push him too fast, clearly. He needed to lure him in, like a timid wild…fawn. Give him some time. The poor boy was probably a virgin.

He shrugged on his robe, then remembered the poppy and felt in his pocket...nothing. A quick search of the pool and surrounding rocks also came up empty. Aurora had probably kept it, drat! He should make sure to keep any others he found, so he could send them back home for analysis. If he’d known, he could have kept the first one instead of letting Abel see it. There were definite advantages to talking to the other visitors…as long as they didn’t steal your discoveries.

He paced around the pools, tired of boiling himself like a pudding but unsure what else to do. Some half-naked monk by the fire pit offered him a roasted sausage on a stick, and he took it and sat down on the rocks with a few other people just to have something to do.

Porthos would know what to do. He’d be _telling_ Jules what to do and that would make doing the opposite even more fun. What was Porthos doing now, he wondered? Probably accounts. Or practicing his stern glower in the mirror. Or maybe he was having fun on his own, now that he didn't have to look after Jules.

It was a sweet thought, but it made him feel even more lonely. He downed another mug of wine and got up to pace around again, further from the pools. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice--Beau! He couldn’t make out any words, but it was coming from a little path that led to a bench under an arbor. He started down the path, but stopped: the moon was almost full and he could see all too well what was happening. 

Beau had taken Aurora’s advice about Helios, and in Jules’ opinion, had taken it entirely too far. He had also taken her advice about the sausages, although the one he was holding looked a little underdone. Jules contemplated sticking a fork in it and throwing it on the fire, but that would probably get him banned for life.

In the interests of avoiding this fate, he turned and stalked off toward the campsite, a red mist gathering in the corners of his vision. They hadn’t even noticed him. They probably wouldn’t have noticed a marching band. Would they, he wondered, notice if he set Beau’s tent on fire? 

There was another familiar voice ahead on the path, although it was filled with such fury that he could barely recognize it. The words were Nintean, and all he could make out for sure were _stop_ and _gone_.

There was a heavy silence. Jules inched around the corner and saw Abel, staring down a young man with sleek black hair and hooded, expressionless eyes. The stranger whirled, sensing an intruder, and a blade flashed in the moonlight.

“ _SOMETHING! Somethingsomething END. Can’t somethingsomething SOMETHING visitor. Something, NOW_.” Abel stabbed a finger at him, and the stranger gave a tiny huff and slipped away down the path.

Abel turned to Jules. “I know I keep saying this, but I am _so_ sorry.”

“Sorry for what? You just made my night more intriguing.” It seemed all right to step forward now, so he did. “Are _you_ all right, though?”

The manager sighed. “I’m fine, thank you. I really should talk to Praxis about him, though—he’s overstepping his bounds terribly.”

“Who was that, if I may ask?”

“Oh, that’s Deimos—he’s the delivery boy at Sleipnir, the next camp over. He used to work here.”

Jules remembered the black hair disappearing into the trees. “Is he the one who’s been playing pranks?”

“Pranks?”

“The poppy?”

“Oh, yes. I forgot you’d seen that.” Abel wiped his brow with a wavering hand. 

“Are you sure you’re all right? Take my arm at least, we can’t have you keeling over.” 

“I’m not going to keel over.”

“Well, _I_ might keel over," Jules volunteered. "The fumes from the hot springs have made me dizzy. I’m in imminent need of a fainting couch.” 

“You are terrible,” Abel said sternly, but he smiled and took the arm. 

They walked slowly back toward the camp. After a minute or so, their hands slid downward and clasped.

“How are you feeling now?” Abel asked when they reached Jules’ yurt. 

“Increasingly unsteady. I don’t know if I can even climb the stairs on my own.” He swayed closer.

Abel laid a gentle hand on his upper arm. “Do you need help?”

“I think I might. You might even have to carry me.”

He laughed. “Let’s just see how far you can get.”

—

It was lovely to lie in a tangle, slipping hands and knees under parted robes and exploring the dips and hollows of Abel’s back, but Jules felt that something was missing. “How does one kiss through these confounded masks, anyway? Do I just knock into you with my muzzle and hope you feel something?” 

Abel took his time surfacing from Jules’ neck. “Well, one thing we can do is…use our hands.”

“Oh! You mean…”

Abel reached under the mask, and Jules felt the delicate kiss of warm fingers, gliding along his jaw and then drifting up to his lips. His breath quickened, and he instinctively sucked one into his mouth.

Abel let out a stifled gasp, but the finger retreated, turning so that its length was touching him instead of its tip. “You don’t—um—you don’t do that, at least not right away. It’s like kissing, just with fingers. And you—do the same with me. If you want to. Either at the same time, or alternating.”

He lifted Jules’ hand and brought it to his own lips. Jules stroked the corner of his mouth, and Abel’s exquisite dark lashes floated down as the warmth of his breath reached out in return.

“This feels very— _mmh_ —Palumbo and Thisbe.”

Abel smiled. “Just don’t wait for me under a mulberry tree.”

“You have to watch out for those lion spirits,” Jules agreed, nipping at his finger to make him squeak and laugh.

“That was an _actual_ lion. And we don’t have those here. Not for at least a hundred years, anyway.”

Not since the Kleismo? He hastily shoved this tidbit into his mental notebook. 

“Oh, and that reminds me—most people do most of the action with their fingers, not their mouth. But some people like to do the opposite.”

“I don’t remember all this from the handbook,” Jules teased. “Is this something they teach you in the monastery?”

“Not um, not exactly. But people talk, you know.” 

“Why bring mouths into it at all?” Jules explored Abel’s lower lip with a fingertip, tracing the subtle boundary between lip and skin.

“Well—mmh—you could just touch hands, I guess? Sometimes people do that too.” His finger and thumb nestled in the corners of Jules’ mouth, and then slowly drew inward until they met. 

Jules squirmed with exquisite frustration, and retaliated by mirroring the movement. He realized that part of the frustration lay in the fact that unlike with traditional kisses, you had to restrain yourself to the outer, driest parts of the mouth, since getting slightly wet would cause the finger to stick, impeding the delicate electricity of the caress. Getting lips and finger completely wet would solve this problem, but it was an entirely different sensation, and apparently a later stage of the process. He decided to skip right to it, and this time Abel didn’t stop him. “How many unsuspecting guests have you seduced in this way?” he breathed after a minute or two.

“What? I—I didn’t—oh.“ Abel’s other hand wound around Jules’ back and vengefully slid down to grasp his—would rump be accurate in this case? Imagine if he had a rump as rounded and muscular as a horse’s! He’d have to get new trousers made. Especially if the anatomy toward the front was at all similar to— 

“You’re my first, actually,” Abel confessed.

“First guest? Or first…person?” The boy might be a little shy, but he didn’t seem inexperienced, at least not so far.

“First guest. I…used to be with someone. Someone local.”

“A local human, or a local horse?”

“Human, of course!”

“I’m just giving you a hard time.” Jules curved his finger around to press gently against the entire lip, like a light but lingering kiss. He leaned as close as he could to Abel’s ear to whisper, “And I’d like to give you a harder one.”

“Jul—“ Abel’s breathy gasp cut off even as his hips jerked forward; he was probably struck by the awkwardness of moaning the name of a cartoonish blue horse. At least that’s what would have made _him_ stop at this point.

“You can call me Jules. It’s, um….a nickname.” Abel undoubtedly knew the real names, personal histories, and preferences of every guest at his camp, so he should understand what this meant.

“Mmmh, all right.” His kissing hand dropped down and curled around the back of Jules’ neck as the other gripped his hip, grinding his own against them. 

Jules abandoned all digital restraint and slipped first one and then two fingers into Abel’s mouth, feeling the vibrations as he moaned around them. “I really, really hate this stupid mask right now.”

“This—” Abel panted, “—isn’t in the handbook, I know, but, we have legends about animal spirits. That mmh. Um. Spirits—taking off their skins.” 

“That sounds—painful.”

“No, I mean like…like silkies, from Eire. Sometimes an animal spirit will marry a human person. Once the couple—mmh—goes to bed and they’re in the dark together, the spirit takes off its skin and appears in human form. But if anyone lights a lamp and sees the spirit naked without its animal skin, it has to flee back to its own lands forever.”

This was obviously a warning, but Jules didn’t care. “So if we turn off the light, I can—”

“Yes.”

“Could I blindfold you instead?”

His cheeks flushed. “I—well, you could in theory, but it might get, um, knocked aside. And I could probably see around the edges.”

“You can’t even have a tiny bit of light at the corners of your vision?” Jules untied the belt of Abel’s robe and pulled it aside, sliding a slow appreciative hand down the crease of his hip and curving his fingers around what he found there.

Abel gasped and pushed forward, but gritted his teeth. “Yes! It’s very important that it be completely dark. Otherwise I really would have to send you home.”

“Well, _that_ would be no fun.” Jules sat up and twisted back to reach for the lamp, palming his travel tin of lube from the bedside table in case they needed it. Darkness enveloped them like a heavy, soft quilt, and he pulled off the encumbering mask, leaning forward to search out Abel’s face and bring their lips together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, Jules, you switch gears quickly…
> 
> Re: Selene’s face—I imagine he wouldn’t be quite as delicate and feminine as he looks in Eclipse, because no mods. I couldn't imagine him keeping up with a complicated ombre out in the field, either, so his hair is just its natural color.
> 
> Please forgive my sloppyass botany IT’S FOR PLOT REASONS OKAY.
> 
> Palumbo is the Nintean version of Pyramus. Or maybe Jules just has trouble remembering names, and Abel was too polite to correct him. :D


	4. Understand and Deliver

“Deimos—please sit down.” Praxis tried to keep his voice calm and pleasant, ignoring the murder in his subordinate’s eyes.

Deimos stood unmoving, only a foot inside the doorway. Praxis cleared his throat, and he finally slouched down into the chair opposite the manager’s desk.

“I notice you’ve been away for unusually long periods over the past few days.” He waited a few seconds, just in case, then took a deep breath and tried again. “You’re not in trouble, at least at the moment. I know it’s hard for you that Cain left—”

Deimos’ eyes flashed, and he bared his small sharp teeth.

“I just need to know what you’ve been doing all this time. The weather has been good, so you shouldn’t have had any delay on your routes.”

His rough, small, precise voice finally emerged. “I made my deliveries on time. Nothing is missing.”

“I wasn’t implying you were a smuggler,” Praxis said patiently. Although that might explain it, now that he thought of it. Deimos did what Cain said, and he certainly wouldn’t put it past Cain. But incoming goods came with an inventory slip, and he would have heard about it if anything outgoing hadn’t shown up at its destination. “We just need you to be here during work hours. And we need to…know you’re safe.”

A short scoffing noise was the only answer.

“What did that mean?”

Deimos sat back in his seat, one eyebrow lifting.

Praxis leaned forward. “Well?”

His gaze flicked away, then back. “What do you want?” 

“I want you to _talk_ to me. I’m not your enemy.”

“How do I know that?”

“Why would you think I _was_ your enemy?” 

“You hate Cain. Now Cain is gone.”

“I don’t _hate_ him—well all right, maybe a little. But that’s because he was always up in my face. I haven’t had to deal with him since I went to Ethbos. Why would I care what happens to him once he’s out of my sight?”

Deimos stuck his hands in his pockets, eyes narrowing.

“I don’t have anything against you personally. I know we didn’t always get along when we were kids, but that’s in the past now.”

He huffed like a tiny dragon. 

“Why do you hate me so much?”

His eyes said, _why do you think?_

“Is it the knife thing? What did you _expect_ me to do?”

“ANYTHING.” Deimos launched himself out of his seat, shaking fingers digging into the edge of the desk. “ANYTHING but that. You—”

Praxis could only stare at him. “I don’t understand. What else would I—”

Before he could finish, a book hurtled toward his head. He ducked, and heard the shattering of glass, followed by a flopping thump. Deimos whirled, shoved his chair aside, and bolted.

The chair did a sedate, uncertain shimmy, then made up its wooden mind and crashed to the floor.

“That went well,” Praxis sighed.

—

He rescued the record book and swept up the glass inside and out of the cabin, picking the remaining shards out of the window panes as well. The workshop could probably do something with the pieces. The weather was mild at the moment and the bugs not very numerous yet, so Praxis decided to leave it that way for the moment. 

If he smoked, he would have needed a smoke; if he drank (much), he would have needed a drink. He would have loved to curl up in bed with a book, but even though the guests were either off doing research or playing cards in the courtyard, he was still on duty. As it was, all he could do was go for a walk.

He brought the glass to the workshop, getting a weird look for his trouble, and paced around the grounds looking for something to fix. The logical thing to do would be to fix the broken window, but he wasn’t feeling particularly logical and for some reason it seemed appropriate that it stay broken.

For once, nothing seemed to be going wrong in the campsite. This made him angry. He decided to chop up some firewood, but found that all the logs were already split. 

Praxis punched a tree as hard as he could, then immediately apologized to it, cradling his split knuckles. It hadn’t done anything to him but defend itself.

What right did Deimos have to be mad at him? What right had Cain had to bully him? Praxis distinctly remembered trying to be nice to each of them when they first got to the monastery. He was nice to all the new boys. Brother Aesop had told him that new boys felt lonely and scared and confused at first, because they were leaving everyone and everything they’d ever known, and that Praxis should try to help them because he had lived there all his life and knew how things worked. But Deimos had just stared at him without saying a thing, and Cain had immediately told him he was a stupid know-nothing cockface and he was going to smash his teeth in if he didn’t shut his stupid mouth.

What right, for that matter, had Cain had to bully _Deimos_? Cain had called Deimos his little brother, but he'd ordered him around like a dog and put him down for laughs. Praxis couldn’t imagine treating anyone that way, especially not someone close to him. He would have given _anything_ for a brother—real or pretend—or a good friend. Or even just to know his own birth name. 

One of Cain’s favorite subjects of scurrilous (and occasionally obscene) speculation had been Praxis’ birth name—if he even had one. Cain and Deimos knew their birth names, of course, because they had families, families they’d lived with and still got to go home to see once in a while. All the other boys had known their own names, and their own families, and their own home villages, even in the rare cases where both parents were dead. Only Praxis had been left in a straw-lined basket outside the doors of the monastery, without so much as a baby blanket to his name. He still had the basket; he used it to store junk he didn’t want but felt too guilty to throw away. 

Why would Deimos choose to hang around with a jerk like that? He was smart and cool and mysterious and knew amazing knife tricks—anyone would have been happy to be his friend. And why would he think Praxis had anything to do with Cain leaving for Kaitos? Those things weren’t his decision. He hadn’t even _known_ about it, for Maika’s sake.

Deimos was really upset, though. Obviously that knife had been important to him in some way. Or maybe the knife incident wasn’t what was really bothering him—maybe it was being alone. Praxis could definitely relate to that.

He went back to the manager’s cabin, sat down, and picked up the phone.

—

The next morning he walked into his office to find Deimos balanced on a step stool in front of the window, carefully fitting in a new pane of glass. He tensed as he heard Praxis come in, but kept working. 

There was no room to sit in his own chair, and it felt too strange and uncomfortable to sit down on the opposite side of the desk ogling Deimos’ unnervingly shapely and tightly-clad backside, so Praxis turned around and left again.

—

The morning after that, he caught up with Deimos in the carriage house as he was getting ready to leave.

He was loading up some gear from last night's theme party to be brought back to the regional warehouse, and Praxis silently picked up a crate and lifted it to the edge of the wagon bed. Deimos’ eyes flashed, but he bent down to pull it further in. 

They finished loading the rest of the crates, and he stood awkwardly waiting for Deimos to lash them to the sides. Finally he jumped down, looking up at Praxis expectantly. They were standing a little closer than was comfortable, and for a moment Praxis forgot why he was there.

“Oh! Yes. I um—I got you something.” Praxis felt in his pocket.

Deimos froze. 

“Well, I didn’t _get_ it for you as such, but I um, asked Brother Eudoxos if he still had it.” He held out the object of their adolescent contention: a scuffed but dainty enameled folding knife with patterns of olive branches and flying birds on the handle. 

Deimos slowly reached out to take the knife, running a solemn finger along it as if he couldn’t believe it was real. He opened it to test the edge of the blade against his thumb in a way that gave Praxis a very strange feeling.

After a moment he closed it and slipped it into his pocket. His eyes dropped and his entire body sagged.

“Is something wrong?” Praxis had anticipated any number of different reactions (including attempted murder), but misery had never occurred to him as a possibility. 

“Why?” He could barely hear the raspy whisper.

“It—seemed important to you. I thought you might want it back.”

“Why now?”

“Well, I figured that we’re adults now and hopefully you had gotten past whatever it was that made you want to threaten me back th—”

Deimos burst out laughing. 

Praxis stood there, mouth still open. 

It was incredulous laughter, absurd laughter, almost testerical. “I forgot—” he doubled over, “—how—how stupid you are.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“You don’t—” Deimos was almost hiccuping now. “You lived in the monastery your whole life so you don’t—you never learned normal things.”

“That’s different from being _stupid_.”

Deimos waved a hand dismissively. 

“What is so funny?”

“I was stupid too. I thought—I thought maybe it wasn’t good enough. _I_ wasn’t good enough. I knew it was old, and the wrong kind, but it was the best one I had.”

“Good enough for _what?_ Wrong kind of _what?_ ”

Deimos looked up at him. “You really don’t know. I can’t believe it.” He doubled over again. Praxis had never seen him laugh like this, only an occasional faint chuckle at something Cain had said.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying this, but would you like to let me in on the joke? Eventually?”

It took at least another minute before Deimos could speak. “That was my favorite knife. My mother gave it to me before...things got bad.”

“All right. So…why did you stab it into my pillow?”

“I thought it might fall off and get lost.” He convulsed again.

“But—why did you put it there in the first place, if it was your favorite knife?” Whatever it was Praxis was supposed to have known was taunting him, and he didn’t like it at all.  
  
“I was stupid. I was a coward. I should have just given it to you.”

“Why?”

Deimos gave him a look from under his fringe of shadowy hair. His eyes were the color of ice, but they made Praxis feel hot and out of breath. Gentle, precise fingers reached up to cup his face. “Why do you think?”

“I—I don’t know. I can’t think.”

“Good.” He pressed his whole fierce, supple body against Praxis’, pulling his head down. His lips settled on Praxis’ mouth, as light as clouds pouring over a mountain slope, and just as inescapable. 

Praxis knew he should pull away, but his body wouldn’t move. After a long moment, Deimos drew back, searching his face for a reaction.

He couldn’t bear the loss. He dipped his head to join their lips again, meaning to stay gentle and slow, but Deimos let out a tiny frantic whine and seized him by the back of the neck, and then they were all fevered hands and desperate mouths. Praxis lifted him up to the edge of the wagon bed, pressing even closer, and Deimos wrapped all his starfish limbs around him. He was going to crack him like a clam and devour every bit of him, and that was just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Ninten is a matriarchy, they say testerical instead of hysterical. :)
> 
> Deimos is making (another) faulty assumption here—knives as courting gifts haven’t been a thing anywhere but Kaitos for a couple generations. Most Ninteans who weren’t raised under a rock would still know what it meant, though.


	5. The Hunt For Red Papaver

Jules woke alone in his starry tent, the birds singing in the trees overhead. He didn’t mind that Abel had left while he was still asleep. He didn’t mind that Porthos was far away. He didn’t even mind the earlier events of last night (much). He did have a bit of a headache, but his mind felt clear. He was alone, and it was all right. He didn’t need anyone else, at least not any one specific person. They were all basically interchangeable. 

He arose with a new determination: from now on, he was going to do everything alone. Of course he still had to talk to people in order to do his work, but he’d do it by himself, not relying on anyone to help him. He’d just rely on his natural charm, and if necessary consult the Faranése to Nintean dictionary that he’d brought along but hadn’t yet cracked open.

He bathed alone and dressed alone and arranged his complicated coiffure alone, and marched off to breakfast to sit in glorious, regal solitude.

Beau slid in across from him, chipper as if he hadn’t been cavorting with cretinous cavemen the night before. “Julian,” he said in a hushed voice, “I found out some things last night.”

 _So did I._ Jules stabbed at his no-longer-solitary omelette. “Yes, and?”

“I asked Helios and he said that he’d never heard of campsite staff playing pranks on other campsites! Some of them do it to each other during the off-season, but only within the same campsite.”

“Are you sure he would know if they did?”

“Of course! He’s popular, so he should know what’s happening, and it’s not as if he’s the manager and has to be a role model.” 

“All _right_ , all right.”

“AND,” Beau said, ignoring his surliness. “Guess who used to bring Abel poppies from Kaitos?”

“St. Nikolai?”

“The last coachman, Cain, who Helios replaced! He was called to Kaitos.”

“By who?”

“Well that’s the thing. Presumably it’s by senior monks in the order, but it happens suddenly and they have to drop everything and leave right away. They don’t even get time to pack or say goodbye to the other staff members.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“A whole bunch of other campsite workers and managers—from different camps—were called there all at the same time. And…Abel and Cain were seeing each other before that, but Abel broke it off a couple of weeks before that happened.”

Jules paused, fork in the air. “Do you think Cain’s sneaking back to leave more poppies?”

“I don’t know, but it seems unlikely. People who get called to Kaitos apparently almost never come back, and no one will say what happens there. I’m wondering if they really do get called. Maybe it’s some kind of euphemism for people who die?”

“But why would they have all died at once? If it were a disease it should affect more people, villagers included. Everyone we’ve seen looks healthy.”

“I don’t know. There are so many possibilities! Maybe everyone who gets really sick is quarantined in a hospital in Kaitos, and they don’t want us to know about it because we might be afraid to stay here. Or maybe there was some kind of religious schism or coup, and they were killed in it. Or it could be something to do with smuggling. Maybe there’s a prison in Kaitos. Or, I don’t know, maybe they’re working on something dangerous there and people die from it sometimes, so they need more every so often.”

“Maybe their goddess wanted some fresh dick.”

“Julian!”

“Just saying. She seems to like them young and good-looking. Have you seen an ugly monk yet?”

“I—no, but I assumed they just sent the good-looking ones to the campsites.”

“Maybe she wears them out. Drains all their energy until they’re just a shriveled sack of skin and bones.”

“Seriously, though, it could be any number of things. But something must be going on in Kaitos. Something that takes people without warning and doesn’t give them back.”

“How do the poppies fit into it, though?”

“I don’t know. If Cain hadn’t been giving them to Abel before, I would have wondered if they were some kind of signal or warning. But nothing seems to have happened to Abel—it’s Cain who left.”

“Maybe he stole them and got punished for it.”

Beau poked at his fruit salad. “That’s an interesting idea. Helios did say he was somewhat—reckless. Maybe he was stealing poppies and saw something that he shouldn’t have? It doesn’t explain why someone’s still leaving them around, though.” He twirled his fork. “Abel jilted Cain. Maybe Cain wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Abel killed him and just blamed it on whatever happens in Kaitos? And is leaving the poppies himself to cover it up?”

“There’s no way he’s capable of that,” Jules scoffed. “Have you _met_ him?” He knew he should tell Beau about the black-haired figure in the woods, and the confrontation with Deimos. It would be the fair thing to do. But life wasn’t fair, was it? And besides, he _liked_ Abel. If he _had_ done away with this Cain fellow, he’d probably deserved it. 

“Maybe it is a _little_ dramatic. But dramatic things happen sometimes.”

Jules sat back and tapped his fork on the table. “Does it seem strange to you that people disappear suddenly but no one seems worried about suddenly disappearing themselves?”

“Mmh. They could be good at hiding it, I guess. But you’re right—they seem pretty relaxed. Which implies either that they know they personally aren’t going to disappear, or that they’re not afraid of whatever happens when you disappear. That seems to rule out illness, at least.”

“But not those other options.”

“Except maybe the coup, if it were just a small group that tried it and it was quickly squashed.”

“Are there any connections between the people who went to Kaitos, other than that they work at campsites?”

“Well, we don’t even know for sure that those are the only people who left. We’d have to survey the entire population and trust that they were telling the truth.” Beau leaned forward. “Actually, you might be in a good position to—“

“Good morning!” Abel greeted them from over Beau’s shoulder. “How was your breakfast?”

“Delicious, glitter,” purred Jules before remembering that Abel couldn’t see his smoldering gaze behind the mask. Damn it! Oh well. It didn’t make much sense anyway considering that they’d only been together last night. Even though they'd been up _very_ late.

“Yes,” Beau added hurriedly. “Very nice, thank you.”

“Great! I just wanted to tell you that we’ll be going berry picking this morning, and then making traditional fruit tarts in the afternoon. The farm is near Sleipnir center, too, in case you want to go shopping or do some surveys there.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely, but I’m already scheduled to visit—” Beau’s voice faded out of his consciousness as Jules’ mind raced. 

He was almost certain that Deimos had been leaving the poppies. But why? They must mean something. Something that upset Abel. Deimos, Cain, and the poppies had all been connected to Kepler before the disappearances. Deimos, Cain, and the poppies had all upset Abel. If Beau’s crazy murder theory were true, maybe Deimos had seen the murder, or guessed it, and was leaving the poppies as a form of blackmail or intimidation? 

Deimos was now at Sleipnir. And Jules didn’t know if the poppies were only appearing at Kepler, or in other places too. He probably couldn’t get into Kaitos, so logically, the next place for him to go was Sleipnir. The guests there might tell him if there had been poppies, even if the staff wouldn’t.

“I’m in,” he announced. “When do we leave?”

—

It was much more difficult than he had imagined to get to the Sleipnir campsite. For one thing, he didn’t know where it was. There was a large-scale map of each island in the handbook, but it didn’t include piddling little details like roads—just towns, campsites, and a few points of interest. Beau had told him that visitors often drew on their own additions. Jules imagined they probably made their own maps too, building on the ones that the previous representatives of their sponsors had made, but he of course had no such resources and had completely forgotten to ask Beau to lend him one. 

There was no way he was going to get his clothes ripped by thorns and his gloves stained by berries, so he loitered under a nearby tree hoping to hear something interesting. There were a lot of nonsensical in-jokes about things that had happened last season, and some jargon-packed chatter from Aurora about the berries, but nothing useful. Abel came over to sit with him for a while and laid his fingers unobtrusively on Jules’ hand, which was pleasant but highly distracting.

Finally they made their way to the Sleipnir town center. Sleipnir was a larger town than Kepler, but the buildings didn’t look as old. Members of the group were given permission to wander around the town center alone as long as they reconvened by three o’clock, so Jules set out to look for a bookstore or any place that might have maps. He dropped off surveys at a number of businesses just to provide cover, but although he found a bookstore and an antique store that sold books, they weren’t selling any maps—at least not to him.

Finally he resorted to stopping a man on the street to ask for directions to the campsite. He got an odd look, but the fellow told him, “The Sleipnir campsite shuttle leaves from the Cock and Ball.”

“The—who?”

“The tavern on Caibel Street. It’s three blocks that way, then turn right.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Jules soon reached the faded, ornate sign depicting a rooster kicking an antiquated leather football. The bartender seemed surprised to be asked, but told him the shuttle left in an hour. He spent the time buying drinks for several amused women to pay them for filling out surveys.

He inserted himself into the small but growing group of Sleipnir visitors, and was about to board the carriage when he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

“Julian, hello! This is the carriage for the Sleipnir campsite—did they not tell you?” Abel was smiling, but it was that overly bright, rigid smile that bartenders got when they wanted you to leave because it was nearly dawn and you had forgotten not to undress people in public. Hmm. Maybe Abel would make a good bartender.

“I was actually hoping to visit there today, to, ah…” he hastily improvised, “…compare campsite features. And maybe ask the manager to complete a survey.” 

“Hmm. I don’t think you’d be able to get back here by three—the Sleipnir shuttle only runs three times a day, and it takes half an hour each way.”

“I don’t mind staying there for longer. I could always hire a carriage back to Kepler afterwards.”

Abel’s smile softened. “You actually need an escort when traveling, I’m afraid.”

“I could ask someone from Sleipnir to take me back. I could give them a voucher for their trouble.”

He pondered, adorably. “You know what? I’ll go with you. I have some business I need to take care of there. I’ll have to go tell Amaru first, and then we can get a carriage out.”

Jules smiled weakly, then remembered Abel couldn’t see it.

—

It was so strange to sit in a carriage, playing footsie with someone you liked who might also, just possibly, decide they wanted to murder you. He’d slept with soldiers, of course, but they had no need for secrecy and therefore no need to do any violence to him that he hadn’t explicitly requested. It was…unexpectedly stimulating.

How _would_ Abel murder someone? Would he stab him? Smother him? Poison him? Send some muscular thug to—

“Jules,” Abel whispered, leaning in closer. His hand, which had been aimlessly stroking Jules’ knee, wandered upward. “Can you be really, really quiet?”

—

Jules descended on wobbly legs, accepting the hand that Abel offered.   
  
“I have to go talk to Praxis for a little while,” Abel told him, “so feel free to explore the campsite.” 

Amazing! He’d been expecting Abel to cling to his side the entire time, preventing him from learning anything. How long did he have, he wondered? Impossible to say, so he’d better get started. 

The guests in the courtyard denied having seen or heard of any stray poppies, although Lily the frog told him that Kaitoan poppyseeds were used in mulled wine to enhance flavor, reduce hangovers, and produce a mild sensation of euphoria. A snake called Cecil added that in Nintean folklore, poppies represented the blood of Maika’s human lover—or in some stories, her half-human son—who died trying to follow her into her boudoir, the crater of an active volcano. Lovely.

Next, he set out to look for Deimos (inwardly congratulating himself on his impromptu story about comparing the two campsites). The guests hadn’t seen him recently, and neither had any of the staff members he asked. There was nothing obviously strange about the campsite itself—it was smaller than Kepler but set up and furnished in a similar way. He poked around the carriage house, finding it well-kept but also free of clues, and finally gave up and asked the stable boy where he could find the manager. 

The manager’s office turned out to be a small cabin near the center of the camp. Jules loitered nearby, doodling aimlessly in his notebook for cover while trying to figure out how to get the manager alone. He must know where Deimos had gone, right? Or at least he should have some information on him, if Jules could only pry it out of him.

Oh! Abel and someone else were leaving the manager’s cabin. The other man clearly wasn’t Praxis; he was short with curly pale hair and a round nose, and after a moment Jules recognized him as one of the people at the party in Neofilio. Did that mean Praxis wasn’t in? There was only one way to find out.

He waited until the other two left, then walked up and knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately, and he looked up to see Mr. Tall Dark & Deadpan himself. He looked a little more relaxed now, though. 

“Hello, Julian. What can I do for you?”

Jules gave him a survey, which Praxis promised to fill out and send back to Kepler later. That done, he took a deep breath and leaned forward. “I know this is a strange question, but I was also wondering if you or anyone else here had seen any red poppies lying around?”

“You mean sacred poppies? They only grow in Kaitos. They have some of the other kind down in the lowlands, I think, but those are usually white or yellow.”

“I don’t mean growing here. I mean left here, as in someone picked them somewhere else, brought them here, and then dropped them somewhere.” 

Praxis frowned. “That _is_ strange. Have you seen them at Kepler?”

“Yes, twice, and someone else found at least one more. They were red and had five petals.”

“Hmm. And you’re sure they were poppies?”

“I may not be a botanist, but I know what a poppy looks like! Tissue-paper petals, black center, hairy stem…you know.”

“Those do sound like sacred poppies, although I’ve never seen one close up. Do you happen to have one with you?”

If Praxis was telling the truth, that meant he had never been to Kaitos either. Interesting. “I showed the first one to Abel and he took it away. He seemed very upset to see it. The second one I showed to a botanist, and naturally she absconded with it.” 

“Strange. Abel getting upset, that is, not the botanist.”

“I’m just a little concerned, because I’m told that the old coachman at Kepler, Cain, used to give them to him. And that they parted on bad terms before Cain was called away to Kaitos.”

Praxis stiffened at the first mention of Cain’s name. “That is…concerning.”

Should he tell Praxis about Deimos? It wouldn’t necessarily implicate Abel, or even Deimos. Maybe Abel had had nothing to do with Cain’s disappearance, and Deimos had only _thought_ he had. 

“Also, I don’t know if Abel mentioned it—maybe he didn’t want to bother you—but I saw your delivery boy Deimos at Kepler arguing with him one night. I don’t speak Nintean so I don’t know what they were saying.”

The stormclouds continued to gather on Praxis’ lofty brow. “There must be some logical explanation for this, but I’ll have a talk with Deimos. Thank you.”

“Do you by any chance know where he might be? I was hoping to talk to him about—” _think fast think fast_ , “—some matters related to freight transportation.” _God, that sounds like I’m a complete idiot trying to buy drugs. Then again, that_ is _my cover_ …

“Hmm. He’s a bit shy and doesn’t like talking, but you could try. Would you like to go look for him now? He might be out by the old cabin—I asked him to clear some things out of there earlier this morning.”

“Yes! That would be excellent.” Jules leaped out of his seat. “Thank you so much. Um…where would that be?”

“I’ll go with you. He'll be more likely to talk if I’m there.”

—

They walked through the campsite down a narrow road into the forest. Unlike Abel, Praxis wasn’t much of a conversationalist. What did that imply about his even more taciturn employee’s likelihood of talking? 

The thought occurred to Jules that luring a rich foreigner out into the darkling woods would probably make a good prelude to murder (either for his valuables or because he’d seen too much), but he felt absolutely no fear. He could tell that Praxis was the sort to carefully gather up a spider and take it outside rather than squashing it.

As they approached the cabin, they could see the cargo wagon in front, horses still hitched. There was no sign of Deimos, though. 

“Oh, there he is,” Praxis said after a moment. “What’s he doing all the way up the hill?” 

Jules could just barely see the slight dark figure about to disappear over the crest of the hill. Praxis started up the road with long, inconsiderate strides, and he had to jog to keep up.

By the time they managed to get anywhere near Deimos, he had slipped into the bushes by the edge of a field. “Deimos,” shouted Praxis through his cupped hands. 

Their quarry turned back toward them, making a shushing motion. They tiptoed the rest of the way to him (Jules trying not to breathe too heavily) and he motioned to them to get down behind the shrubbery.

“ _See,_ ” the delivery boy whispered in Nintean, gripping Praxis’ arm. “ _Something something not gone_.”

They peered through the leaves. An unkempt but ruggedly handsome young man with turquoise beads woven into his shaggy black forelock crouched in the field, poking a hole in the dirt with his finger. He held a crumpled bunch of scarlet poppies in his other hand, and after he seemed satisfied with the hole, he stuck one of them into it, patting the loose dirt down around it. 

“What is he doing,” Jules asked. “You can’t just stick a flower in the ground and expect—“

Deimos shot him a murderous glare. _“Something something HE something here?”_ he rasped to Praxis.

“ _He_ wanted to talk to you,” Jules snapped. “But I suppose I don’t need to anymore.”

The delivery boy ignored him, spouting out another stream of Nintean gibberish.

 _“Why something something not tell?”_ Praxis whispered. 

Deimos gave him a look. “ _Something Cain. Something something your something.”_

“So _that’s_ Cain?” That ruled out Beau’s murder theory. “Could you two maybe speak— _”_

“Jules! Praxis! There you are. What are you doing?” Abel said from behind them.

Deimos whirled around to shush him.

“Deimos? What— _”_

“He found Cain, but for some reason we all have to be quiet,” Jules whispered to him. “Look out there.”

Abel craned over a gap in the bushes, not bothering to crouch down. “Maika’s ever-leaking TITS. I cannot believe this.” He crashed through the bushes into the field. “Cain! _Why something something here? Something something Kaitoa._ ”  
  
Cain stood up, not bothering to brush off his hands or clothes. He tilted his head as if he could hear Abel’s voice, but only from a very great distance. Even when Abel marched right up to him to shout in his face, he didn’t appear to see him.

“Is he blind?” Jules asked Praxis. 

“Not that I know of.”

Deimos shook his head. “He usually runs away if he sees me. Maybe he wants to talk to Abel.”

“What _happened_ to him?” Praxis whispered. “Has he gone mad?”

He shrugged. 

Cain finally managed to focus on Abel. He held out a poppy, face expressionless.

Abel knocked it out of his hand with another hissed Nintean phrase.

The mad coachman said something Jules couldn’t catch, and turned away to trudge off across the field. Deimos broke out of the trees and ran after him, and after a moment so did Praxis. Jules snagged the fallen poppy and stuffed it into his pocket before following at a more sedate pace. God help his boots in all this agricultural muck—at least it wasn’t raining.

Praxis and Deimos caught up to Cain and after a serious consultation managed to pick him up, Praxis carrying the top half and Deimos the feet. Cain put up a halfhearted struggle for a few seconds and then went limp. They staggered back to where Abel stood, arms folded and mouth a hard line.

“We’re going to put him in the driver’s box, give him the reins, and see where he goes,” Praxis announced. “Maybe we’ll find out more from wherever he takes us.”

Abel sighed. “You are ALL crazy. What if he goes back to Kaitos?”

“He and Deimos are both Kaitoan—they’ll be allowed in. I can hide in the wagon under some…sacks or something. We can load up the wagon with a few things from the cabin to make it look like we’re bringing in some cargo.”

“You really think you can find out something useful from that?” 

“How else would we?” He added a quick stream of Nintean that made Abel frown in apparent concentration. _Rude._

“What did Cain say to you back there?” Jules asked Abel.

“It didn’t make any sense. He said something about a bargain and needing more.”

“Maybe he wants to go shopping,” Jules quipped.

“Not that kind of bargain—the kind you make with someone. A transactional agreement.”

“Hmm. Intriguing! Well, shall we get started?”

“I’m sorry, Julian," Praxis said gravely. "I can’t let you come with us. We have no idea what we’re going to find. It could be dangerous. Abel can take you back to Kepler.”

Jules drew himself up, fully aware of how ridiculous this probably looked given his cartoonish blue horse mask. “Are you implying that I can’t take care of myself? I studied fencing for years, you know.”

Praxis coughed. “I um—I’m sure you’re deadly with a blade. But as a guest, we can’t allow you to be subjected to danger.”

Jules examined his fingernails, or at least the parts of his gloves that were covering his fingernails. “That’s too bad. I guess I’ll have to warn the other guests about this mysterious danger, and the measures you’ve been forced to take against it. After all, who knows what else might come out of these woods?”

“Jules, that’s terrible!” Abel scolded. The corners of his mouth were twitching, though.

Praxis closed his eyes and inhaled. “All right. But you need to swear that you won’t tell anyone about any of this, you understand?”

“Deal!” Jules extended his hand, then remembered that Praxis had to keep both hands on Cain.

“Deal,” Cain echoed thoughtfully, staring up at the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t even have to pretend that the two meanings of “bargain” are just coincidentally the same in Faranése, because the word “bargain” is derived from French. :D


	6. Jules Versus the Volcano

“Why couldn’t we have just gone through the border somewhere else?” Julian whined, wincing dramatically as the wagon jolted over a pothole. 

Praxis stifled a sigh. Even though they’d given him Deimos’ bedroll to sit on and his pillow to lean against, Julian had spent half the trip complaining about the roughness of the ride, and the other half flirting and petting shamelessly with Abel. He’d only shut up when he’d had to hide in a crate for the border crossing. Praxis had a crick in his neck from averting his gaze, and had been fantasizing for the past hour about stuffing that braying _kolteron_ back in his crate and piling a few more on top of it. He missed Deimos, who was up front in the driver’s box supervising Cain and might as well have been a mile away for all ~~romantic~~ practical purposes.

He opened his mouth to answer, but Abel rescued him from what would have probably become a diplomatic incident. “There’s a hedge around the border,” he cheerfully informed Julian. “A really tall, thick, tough thorny hedge. You’d have to set it on fire to get through it, and then someone would see the smoke and come investigate.”

Praxis shut his mouth, closed his eyes, and tried to doze off.

—

“The mountain is bleeding,” Cain announced.

Praxis staggered to his feet and leaned out to look. Up ahead was a stern, towering mountain of black basalt, rivers of glowing vermilion poppies running down its sides like lava. The road led to a barred entrance: a tiny mouse hole when you considered the scale of the mountain, but the men standing in front of it were much tinier. 

Deimos took the reins from Cain and stopped the horses, turning back toward the inside of the wagon. “This is the holy mountain,” he said in Faranése. “They say Maika lived here once.”

Praxis blinked in surprise; he had never heard Deimos speak anything but Nintean. “Who lives here now?” he asked.

“Those who are called there.”

“Are they all like Cain?” Julian asked. “That would be creepy.”

Deimos shrugged. “None of us are allowed to in to see. The guards take deliveries and then send us away.”

“Us meaning local Kaitoans?” Abel asked.

He nodded.

“So we can’t hide in the crates this time,” Praxis mused. “I don’t like it.”

Deimos shrugged again. “We could tell them that we were called.” 

“If _that_ worked people would be walking in here all the time,” Julian scoffed. 

“Hmm, I don’t know,” said Abel. “Why would anyone else want to go in here? Other than visitors, and they’d be turned away at the border.”

“People once came here to consult the oracle. But the oracle stopped speaking, and the mountain closed.”

“The mountain is bleeding,” repeated Cain from outside.

"So _this_ is where the oracle lives? I guess that makes sense..."

"What oracle?" Julian asked.

"Maika usually leaves us free to conduct our own affairs," Abel told him, "but once in a while she speaks to us through the oracle Katrina. We knew the oracle lived in seclusion to avoid distractions, but no one except the high priests know where. And Kaitoans, I guess. I never heard that she accepted petitioners, though."

“So when did she stop taking requests?”

“Before I was born," Deimos replied. "But not long before. My mother went there once.”

Abel said, “Well, they shouldn’t expect people to try to get in, then. I think we should try it. At worst they’ll just turn us away.”

“We should leave Julian outside, though," Praxis said. "I’ve never heard of a foreigner being called.”

Julian folded his arms. “I _told_ you, I’m not staying behind!”

Praxis sighed. “If you really must come along, you’ll need to take off your mask. It not only marks you as foreign, but it’s conspicuous even from a distance.”

“But we can’t look at his face!” Abel exclaimed. “We’d have to send him home.”

Deimos inclined his head toward the wool cloak hanging behind the driver’s box. “Pull the hood down low.”

—

They wrapped Julian’s mask and mane in a spare length of canvas and tucked it inside a hollow log near a sharp bend in the road.

“This feels so wrong,” Abel complained. 

“We’re about to trespass in your religion’s most sacred place,” Julian pointed out, pulling off his gloves and shoving them in his pocket. “How is it worse that you might accidentally see part of my face?”

“Well, we _are_ Maika’s servants, and we’re just checking to make sure her house is in order. I can’t imagine she’d mind that. But she did say the masks were necessary. While you’re here, you’re not just Jules—you become a conduit for the spirit of Julian, even if you don’t realize it. It gives you a place in her service and a pattern for your conduct.”

“So I’m participating in your religion just by coming to Ninten?”

“Of course! You didn’t know that?”

“Hmm. Well, my mother always _did_ want me to go to church…”

They’d agreed that everyone except Deimos would pretend to be in whatever hypnotic state had possessed Cain. Their numbers would justify the wagon, so if the crates were searched they wouldn’t need an explanation as to why they were delivering theme party decorations to the holy mountain.

Deimos gently shoved Cain into the shotgun seat and took up the reins. Cain, still staring at the mountain ahead of them, put up no resistance.

—

“Oh good, you caught that one with the blue…hair thingies. He’s been getting out a lot lately.” The guard peered into the back of the wagon. “Quite a few of them, aren’t there? They usually come in one or two at a time.”

Praxis was doing his best not to turn and look, but he could hear the thump as the man swung back down to the ground. “All right, I’ll get someone to bring them in. You can go.”

Shit. Somehow they hadn’t thought of that. He could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“The high priest ordered me to report to him,” Deimos said after a slight pause. Praxis was amazed at how natural he sounded.

“Oh, all right. Vik, you can bring them in. And get me a tyropita while you’re in there, will you?”

They allowed the guards to drag them down to the ground one by one, and shuffled after the soon-to-be-unfortunate Vik. Praxis fervently hoped that Deimos didn’t just decide to knife him in the back.

Cain pushed to the front and picked up speed as they entered the wide, arched tunnel, and the others hurried to match him while Deimos brought up the rear. Vik had to grab Cain’s arm to slow him down. “I guess you heard tyropita, didn’t you? We’re not going to the kitchen yet, buddy. We’ve got to get you settled in first.”

Praxis and Deimos exchanged glances, and Deimos motioned forward with his head. Praxis edged toward the front of the group, surreptitiously undoing his cravat and balling it up in his hand. He’d been getting more used to it lately, but if it came down to wearing the thing or using it in an act of morally dubious violence, the latter still won out. Especially given the cloying, sulphurous heat of the tunnels, most of which seemed to be natural lava tubes.

“Gosh, your lot are well-behaved, aren’t they?” Vik chattered. “That’s a big relief. It can take two or three people to wrestle just one of them in the right direction sometimes.”

The right direction for _what,_ Praxis wondered.

“Three,” Cain remarked. “Three. Three.”

“Three,” Abel echoed.

“Haha, okay guys. Definitely three then. You all are very strong!”

Finally they came to a heavy wooden door with a small barred window, bolted shut from the outside. “Here we are!” Vik announced. “Let me just check where everyone is first.” He peeked into the window, then unbolted the door. “Sometimes they all try to rush out at once. You never know what kind of mood they’re in.”

They filed in (all except Deimos), and Praxis nearly gasped. There must have been more than two dozen men in the large dormitory cave, sitting on cots or heaps of throw pillows, pacing along the wall, or standing alone, swaying and staring into nothing. There was Bering, who had managed the Sleipnir campsite, humming and aimlessly pulling at his own shaggy beard; Encke, the former manager of Kepler, absorbed in tracing the cracks in the wall with his finger; his former classmates Patel and Luna sitting cross-legged facing each other, doing something very serious with a bit of string. 

Abel tugged at his sleeve. _We have to let them out_ , he mouthed. _Distraction._

Praxis thought a moment, and nodded. They might not all go, but some probably would. He handed the cravat to Abel, then sidled up behind Vik and lunged, pinning his arms to his sides. 

“Whoa, buddy! Let go! Hugs are good, but only from the front, okay?” 

Julian gently smacked his own forehead.

“Hey! Mister! A little help here?” Vik called out to Deimos, before Abel stepped forward and gagged him with the ascot. His eyes widened, and he began to struggle in earnest.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Praxis told him.

“Whhaa aaa yaaaa dooooaaaan iss?!”

“You know, I’m really not sure at this point. Maybe it’s the fumes. Or maybe it’s just that we came this far and we want to find out what’s happening.” He did feel a bit muddled, actually, but it could just be the heat. He’d never been good with too much heat.

“Or maybe we’re perverts who like tying people up in dungeons,” Julian said, prompting a choking fit from Abel. “You’ll have to take off your shirt,” he told Praxis. “We don’t have anything else to tie him up with.”

“Lies,” Abel retorted. “Fickle lies. We’ve got MY shirt.” They both dissolved in giggles.

“You have a cravat too,” Praxis pointed out. “Ow! Stop kicking me.”

“Oh! So I do.” Abel unwound it with clumsy fingers, and they managed to tie the struggling, protesting Vik to a heavy stalagmite. They turned around to begin shooing out the prisoners, but they were already staggering to their feet and shuffling out the door. Deimos was still by the entrance, one arm hooked through the bars and the other gripping the back of Cain’s waistband in an effort to keep him from charging off too.

They bolted the door shut, and Deimos let go of Cain.

“All right,” Praxis told him. “Let’s see where you go next.”

—

They were lucky enough to avoid any trouble on the way; it looked like there weren’t a lot of people living or working in this hot, stinky mountain. What a surprise. Cain led them to another barred door, unbolting it and walking right in.

“Blue!” A tiny but sturdy woman in a black panther mask and intricately patterned red & purple robes rushed forward to enfold Cain in a tight hug, lifting him slightly off the ground. “Not only did you get out, but you got in!”

“Get out,” Cain intoned, offering her the remains of his bouquet of poppies.

“Thank you, sweetie!” She tucked the flowers into her robe, then saw the rest of the party and stiffened. “You’re not taking them! They’re the property of the goddess!”

“We don’t want to take your flowers, ma’am,” Abel reassured her. “We, ah—I guess we’re here to rescue you? You are being imprisoned, right?”

“Well, yes, I _am_ imprisoned in this room, but I don’t want to leave the mountain. I’m the oracle Katrina, and the oracle must stay in Maika’s house to relay her messages.”

“We were told that you were no longer relaying messages,” Praxis said. “For the last twenty-odd years.”

“Well of course not! That bastard priest wanted me to deliver false prophecies for him, but I told him to fuck off so he locked me in this room. They take me out once a day for exercise, but they haven’t let me into the oracular chamber and they don’t let me have any poppy juice. Blue here sometimes brings me a poppy when he gets out, but it doesn’t do me much good if I can’t get into the oracular chamber. That’s where Maika speaks clearly.”

“What is she saying?” Julian whispered to Abel.

Katrina turned to him, hands on her hips. “I’m _saying_ ,” she said, switching to Faranése, “that this Magiras asshole locked me in here because I refused to cook the books for him.” She laughed at her own pun. “He’s a fucking coward who should have made his sacrifice twenty-seven years ago, but nooo, that dickbag decided he was too important to the welfare of the nation and he was going to toss in a scarecrow in his place. And then people started going daft like Blue here—no offense, sweetie. What did he _think_ would happen? The goddess needs her sacrifices.”

“Perhaps it’s time she got some, then.” 

They whirled around, and found a bouquet of spear points at their throats. 

“High Priest Magiras!” Abel gasped. 

“It’s a shame that you boys trespassed in Maika’s holy mountain,” Magiras said, smoothing his already-perfect slicked-back silver hair. “Especially you, Abel. You showed so much promise. But the oracle is right. Maika is terribly overdue for a sacrifice, and I think I should probably give her several, just to apologize for my previous negligence. Five sounds like a good number, don’t you think?”

“You piss-slurping bastard!” Katrina shouted. “They have to be willing sacrifices and you know it!”

“On second thought, six would be a better number. You’ve been living here rent-free and useless for decades, old woman. I should have found some cute, cooperative young girl to replace you years ago.” He jerked his head at the guards. “Take them all to the oracular chamber.”

—

They marched up the sloping tunnel toward the center of the mountain, Katrina still shouting occasional insults. She’d pulled the poppies out of her robe at one point and tried to stuff one in her mouth, but a guard had snatched them away and handed them to Magiras. Everyone was pouring with sweat; the heat was becoming steadily more oppressive and the fumes were dizzying. By the time they reached the door, Praxis was almost happy to be sacrificed if it meant he could finally stop boiling alive.

The guards shoved them all into the chamber—a small, rough-hewn cave lit only by the reddish smoke wafting up from an ominous glowing pit in the floor. Just behind the pit was a plain wooden stool. 

“You festering pile of monkey shit! You’re not supposed to sacrifice foreigners either! What good would that do?”

“What foreigners? Foreigners aren’t allowed in Kaitos, so by definition anyone who shows up here is Nintean.” Magiras strode over to Julian and pushed back his hood, and Abel gasped and averted his eyes. “Ah…Jules, was it? Congratulations, you’re a citizen of Ninten now, by my decree.”

“And to think my father said I’d never accomplish anything,” Jules remarked.

The guards pushed them further into the cave, and someone knocked a pebble into the pit. Praxis listened, and it took entirely too long for it to hit bottom. He thought he could hear a hiss, too. There _had_ to be lava down there.   
  
“You can’t just shove _anyone_ down the hole! They have to be willing!”

“They chose to come here, therefore they’re willing.” Magiras seemed to enjoy riling her up. 

“Maika is going to rip you a new asshole, you smug goatfucker!”

“Would you like to sit in your seat so you can make that an official prophecy? You can oversee the proceedings…until it’s your turn, of course. That would be proper protocol.” He gestured to the guards to drag her over to the stool.

“Let go of me! I can sit down by myself.” Katrina batted away the guards’ hands, gathered up her skirts, and settled down onto the stool.

“Now,” said Magiras with a beatific smile. “Who wants to go first?”

Deimos stomped on his captor’s instep and ducked down to reach his boot. A blade shot toward the high priest’s head—and stopped inches away, glinting reddish in the light from the pit. It hovered motionless in the air, but Magiras himself began to rise, a look of shock on his face.

All the guards did, too. Their hands fell limp at their sides and their feet lifted off the floor, dangling forlornly like winter crabapples. Praxis’ boots stayed on the ground, but he couldn’t move either.

Glowing lines and curves shot out from the pit, forming an intricate mandala. They swirled around Katrina’s chair, and through the snarling panther mask her eyes burned with the same light. **Magiras,** a voice seared itself into the air. **Where is my sacrifice?**

**—**

The high priest finally managed to speak. “What? What is this? Put me down immediately!”

**Three times three times three years passed. There was no sacrifice. Now three times three times three have passed again. I am owed two sacrifices. You should have been one of them, High Priest.**

“Take two of these men,” he cried, looking at Praxis and Abel and Deimos. “Take all three, even! They’re your servants. They’re younger and more vigorous than I am.”

**The sacrifice must offer himself.**

“Well I _don’t_ offer myself,” Magiras shouted. “I’ve spent almost sixty years in your service even though I didn’t believe you existed! Shouldn’t that be enough?”

**You spent your life gaining power. What you take, you must give back, or it will be taken from you. The bargain requires it.**

“What bargain? I didn’t make any bargain with you!”

**Your people bargained with me over one hundred years ago. You speak for your people. Do your people wish to end the bargain?**

“Yes! Yes! End it! And put me down.”

**You lie to save your own life. I can feel that your people do not wish to end the land’s prosperity. You no longer speak for your people.**

Magiras suddenly dropped to the ground, limp as a doll. He began to weep—dry, papery sobs that slowly faded away.

**Who speaks for the people of Ninten?**

“Um,” Abel said after a moment. “I think Hayden is next in line? But he’s not here right now.”

**I understand. Who will speak for the people here, on this day?**

There was a long pause.

“I will,” Praxis found himself saying. Deimos shot him a troubled glance.

**Two more sacrifices are needed to keep the bargain. The bargain weakens. The fortune of the land begins to fail.**

He suddenly remembered the weak-shelled eggs, the poorly-dyed cloth, the termites…and all the other annoying and insidious problems that plagued the Sleipnir campsite. The staff had told him they’d never seen anything like it before. Some of the returning guests had complained. If this was happening at the campsite, where they didn’t need to grow crops or produce goods, how much more must it be affecting ordinary people who depended on these things for their livelihood? What would happen if it got worse?

**Without sacrifices, I must take the minds of my servants. I have taken more and more of them to keep the bargain, but it is not enough.**

“What kind of mother goddess behaves this way?” Abel asked suddenly, his dark brows drawing together. “Making bargains. Stealing your children’s minds. Asking us to sacrifice our lives for you.” Jules tried to shush him, but Abel shook him off.

**I am not your mother. I am not a goddess.**

“What?!”

**I do not create. I do not rule. I watch over the land. I am a spirit of these mountains. I was born in fire as they were. Before your people came, my only bargain was with the mountains and the creatures that dwelt upon them. There was no need to speak, no need for sacrifice. When your people came it was the same, until that time when they came to my mountain and asked a great work of me. They asked for health and wealth and good luck in all they did. You, Abel, and you, Praxis, watch over a small part of the land. Is that an easy task?**

“Well….no,” Abel admitted. 

Praxis added, “We have to study and practice for years to learn how to do it.”

**It is the same with me. My mind is not infinite. I was not accustomed to intervening directly in everyday affairs. Now I must do so in a thousand different ways at once, every moment of every day. This takes power, and it takes the work of many eyes and many minds. I can use the eyes of animals, but they often die if they do my work instead of their own. I can take the eyes and minds of humans, but they resist and in their resistance, little work is done. I have learned that a willing human servant can give me a small fraction of sight and mind, small enough not to harm or control, and all my servants do this. But it is not enough without sacrifice.**

“I see,” said Praxis. He had no idea what to do about it, though.

 **The land is under strain. The roots of the mountains crack. I cannot hold them much longer. I need at least one acceptable sacrifice within the next hour, or the mountains will writhe and break, and the fire in them will run out over your towns.**  
  
“Shit,” said Jules. “Could you end the bargain for the moment? And maybe renegotiate a less labor-intensive deal later?”

**Only if you find it acceptable to lose your mountain towns and their people. There is too much damage to end the bargain without at least one sacrifice.**

There was a long silence. 

Praxis gathered his breath. “I—I guess I could—”

“NO,” shouted Deimos, grabbing his arm. Praxis had never heard him make that loud a noise, even when they were—never mind. “This makes no sense. How does killing someone help?”

**A willing human death produces great power. But the sacrifice of a willing human mind and body to my service produces more, and it also gives me a powerful tool and conduit.**

“Wait,” said Praxis. His head was spinning. “So you need a sacrifice, but you don’t need someone to die? How does that work?”

“Do you…possess them like you did with Cain?” Abel asked suspiciously.

**I possess them more completely, because they have given body and mind and life to me. But no sacrifice has yet done this. The previous sacrifices chose to die.**

“Why? Does it hurt or something?”

**My oracle has suffered no pain. I would feel it if she had.**

“Katrina?” Praxis asked. “You mean she sacrificed herself to you? I thought you said they all died.”

**An oracle’s living sacrifice is a separate matter. But they are similar in nature.**

“I’ll do it,” said Deimos. “I’ll be your sacrifice. The kind that lives.”

“Deimos! Why?” It was his turn to clutch his lover’s arm and silently, selfishly plead: _am I not enough?_

“I want to be a part of something. Something that matters.” He looked at Praxis apologetically. “Something bigger than the two of us.”

The masked head turned slowly toward Deimos. **Are you sure? You will be required to speak often, and converse with many strangers, even when I am not controlling your body.** The light in the eyes flickered briefly, almost as if Maika were laughing.

“Yes. I can do it.” 

**Very well.**

A glowing line streaked along the floor from the pit to Deimos’ feet. Once it connected, it instantly disappeared, and Deimos’ eyes flashed with the same fiery light as Katrina’s. His body went limp, and Praxis hurried to catch him.

 **This is a strong mind. Very complex. It is good,** Maika said from Katrina’s mouth. **I will need to use his mind for at least three days. Take care of his body while this happens. With this much power and ability, I can afford to free your brother’s mind now.**

“My—what?”

“What the fuck am I doing in this cave?” Cain said from the corner. “And what the _fuck_ are you doing with Deimos?” 

“Excuse me, _brother?”_ Praxis shifted Deimos into a more comfortable position. “Please tell me you meant that in the spiritual sense.”

**Cain's father is your father.**

“Maika’s TITS—uh, sorry, your holiness.” Cain seemed to be catching on faster than they had. Maybe she was feeding him information subconsciously. “That overgrown cyclops is my fucking BROTHER? Fuck. I knew my da was a whore, but I always figured _Deimos_ was my brother.”

“A cyclops has ONE eye, asshole. I have two. I _always_ had two. YOU threw a rock at one of them when we were ten and I had to wear an eyepatch while it was healing. But I ALWAYS had two.”

“Pfft. Whatever. You’re still a cyclops.”

Praxis sighed.

**I must concentrate now. You may go. I will make the guards sleep for a time.**

“Wait,” Abel ventured. “Does Jules really have to leave the country now that we’ve seen his face?”

**The mask is your rule, not mine. It is your decision whether to abide by it.**

Abel whooped and swept Jules up into a tight embrace.

—

Praxis leaned eagerly over the rail of the ship, the brisk autumn wind whipping through his hair. They had made good time from Calosson and were just pulling into Neofilio. He could almost see the tiny waiting figures of people on the dock.

He’d needed some time to think after the events in Kaitos—the eruption had been averted, but Maika still needed at least one more sacrifice if she were to continue Ninten’s prosperity. It was only logical that the second sacrifice should be him, since Deimos had volunteered to be the first—but could he really, wholeheartedly agree to give his entire body and mind to her? He knew now that Maika was real, and he respected her for who she was and what she was doing, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to serve a goddess who could and would reach into him like a hand puppet and make him do whatever she wanted. 

It had taken Abel less than ten seconds to make his own decision: absolutely not. He’d spent his life trusting and worshiping Maika in a way that Praxis never had, and now that he’d found out that she was—as he put it—“just a glorified campsite manager,” he was done with the priesthood forever. In fact, he’d decided to go back to Faráne with Jules once the visiting season was over. They were already planning to start a business together, even though they hadn’t yet decided what it would be. Praxis figured it would probably involve Ninten in some way, because Magiras’ declaration of Jules’ Nintean citizenship had had a lot of witnesses, and the decision seemed to have stuck even though Magiras had lost his position as high priest immediately afterwards. He couldn’t imagine Jules not taking advantage of that.

Jules had invited Praxis to come along and see Faráne too, which was too good an opportunity to pass up even if it meant leaving Deimos for a few weeks. Faráne—or at least the part where Jules and his family lived—was excitingly loud and smelly and vivid and he’d had a great time, but he couldn’t imagine living there. It was too exhausting—he’d need to borrow a few minds himself to cope in the long term, haha. Abel seemed to like it, though.

Praxis still wasn’t sure if he wanted to be a living sacrifice, but there was plenty of time to figure it out. He planned to live with Deimos, take care of him when he needed it, and pay attention to how life as a sacrifice affected him. He’d have to put up with his new brother (ugh!) and meet the family as well (maybe not ugh?), but he’d find a way to handle that when the time came.

The tiny people grew slowly larger, and as they pulled up to dock, Praxis locked eyes with Deimos and waved madly. He tossed aside all decency and shoved to be first down the gangway, dropping his bag once his feet touched the dock so Deimos could leap into his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied, it was actually Cook versus the volcano. "Jules" just sounded more like "Joe." :D
> 
> kolteron: a derogatory word for foreigner  
> tyropita: a cheese & egg pastry made with filo dough
> 
> Re: Deimos’ pillow—Deimos started sleeping in the wagon most of the time once he was transferred to Sleipnir; he didn’t like the idea of sleeping in a tent with anyone but Cain, so he made a little nest for himself in what is essentially his camper. When he’s not using the bedding he rolls it up and hangs it just behind the driver’s box. Praxis finally persuaded him to stay over in his yurt, although he had to do it by inviting him over and then exhausting him until he fell asleep. :) 
> 
> Jules didn’t actually complain THAT much—Praxis is just cranky because he's nervous and the trip's been long & uncomfortable and these gooey lovebirds are invading what has recently become HIS cargo netting-festooned love nest.
> 
> Re: Katrina's pun—mágeiras is the Greek word for cook, so Cook wanted her to cook the books.
> 
> Re: living versus dead sacrifices—I couldn't figure out how to fit this in, but the reason the previous sacrifices all chose to die was that Maika had used the word "sacrifice" and didn't think to tell them about the two possible meanings, so they just assumed they were supposed to go for a swim in the lava pit. :o


End file.
